Empire
by djinni14
Summary: The Empire is vast and ever expanding. Earth is next to be added to the Empire. It's not an invasion that Earth has been fearing or hoping for all these years. Though it could be something much, much worse. How much time do Rick and Kate have to get it right? THIS STORY IS RATED M FOR SEXUAL CONTENT AND VIOLENCE! READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! - NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Empire**

 **Chapter 1**

Rick stepped out of the ship he had been in AFTER signing out and saluting the captain. It had been a relatively quick tour, only four months. The part that irked him the most was that it had been a milk run. What they needed a war ship for this for escaped him.

He himself may be a captain, however the captain of this ship technically outranked him.

What he was really looking forward to was catching up to his wife and his daughter. Four months had been four months far too long. He was already missing out on way too much for his liking. His little girl was growing up fast and he feared that she was going to forget him.

He had his bag in hand and sighed heavily when he found someone at the gate waiting for him. "Captain Castle, if you'll come with me please." He had his orders even if he didn't know why.

"Lead the way." It wasn't like he had a choice.

They went to the landing bay next door and boarded a shuttle. Rick raised an eyebrow. This was an **a** **dmiral's** shuttle. Not a simple shuttle that would take crew from ship to shore or ship to ship. There was even wine and food waiting for him. Still it was an admiral's shuttle so he didn't touch it. If he wanted to get anywhere he needed to do his job, do it very well, and keep his nose clean. It was politics and he hated it. His wife was so much better at it. But then her race was born into it unlike his.

Rick watched as the shuttle went down from the station and into the planet's atmosphere. He was a little taken aback at the building they were headed for. He also started groaning. He silently prayed that he wasn't being assigned another position so quickly. He was looking forward to some much needed shore leave.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick saw the name on the door and was a little surprised. Roy was, he thought, a good friend, so why was he doing this to him?

"Captain Castle. If you'll sign in please," the young woman at the reception requested. She looked new to him since he didn't remember seeing her before. Roy did have good taste in his hired help, though. She had green skin, green hair, hell, green everything. He was betting she even had green pubic hair. She was drop dead gorgeous and just oozed sex.

Rick placed his hand on the pad. "Captain Richard Castle. Code Alpha 2, Delta 1123, Gamma 2."

"Code and voice confirmed." The pad turned green like it always did.

"You can go in, he's expecting you," she told him with a smile that made his cock twitch. He made a low sound in his throat then remembered that he was a married man.

"Roy?" Rick saw him sitting behind his desk.

"Rick!" Roy was happy to see him; he got up came around and shook his hand.

"What have you volunteered me for this time, old friend? I was hoping for some shore leave with my wife and daughter. I thought we were friends," Rick teased.

"Oh, we are, we are. Drink? I think you're going to want it." Roy offered him a glass and poured him a drink.

Rick took it and downed it quickly. He needed something to kill the pain of what was to come.

Roy turned his back to him and picked up a pad. "This is eyes only." He handed it to him and gave Rick a moment to read.

"What's a Banshee Battleship? And what's it go to do with me?" Rick had never heard of such a ship in his life and he knew his ships.

"Over here." Roy took him over to a table and activated it. "This is a Banshee Battleship." He gave Rick a moment to look it over.

It didn't have anything next to it to give him any idea of scale, but if it was a battleship, that made it one of, if not now, the biggest battleship in the Empire.

"I've never seen anything like it. You're sure this is a battleship?" Rick just stared at it. It looked like two scimitars married together to form a ship. It was only the stern of the ship that was a little boxy-looking.

"So why am I being shown this ship?" Rick braced himself for the bad news.

"Because it's yours…commodore." Roy chuckled softly at his reaction.

"Mine! commodore!" But he was just a captain and didn't command a ship. Rick stared at it once again with new eyes. Then he squeezed them closed. "What's the catch?" His luck wasn't that good.

"The Empire has found a planet. It's far off in a minor arm of the galaxy. It's inhabited and the Emperor has decided to add it to the Empire. This is where you come in." Roy was sure he was going to love it. IF, and that was a big if, Rick let him finish before he blew a fuse.

"Sir." Rick was all set to decline his kind offer.

Roy continued to tell him more about the task. "The ship is actually a city since this is going to be a four year deployment."

"Four…years?" Rick would rather just kill himself and get it over with.

"Did I mention that it will have families onboard? Basically an entire small city that just happens to have the latest in weaponry that the Empire has to offer." Roy waited for it and started counting.

"Families! I accept on one condition." Well, actually it was two but he wasn't thinking fast enough. He was too shocked by it all.

"Your wife and child are already on board along with a full crew and supplies. She's there waiting for you to command her. Take her to the planet and add it to the Empire as commanded by the Emperor," Roy asked since commanding him wasn't something he could do to Rick.

"What's she called?" Rick was in and couldn't wait to board her.

"The ship or the planet?" Roy teased. "The ship is named _SSE YI SUN SHIN._ Swentab System Explorer, the first of its kind. It only just finished its space trials and final configuration."

"Yi Sun Shin." Rick tried it on for size. He actually kind of liked it. It seemed to fit it perfectly. "I need to go home and pack, sir." He had a lot to move onto the ship.

Rick turned to find Roy standing there with a small box. "These used to be mine. I would be honored if you would wear them on your ship. Wear them proudly and serve the Emperor with distinction. Something that will be remembered in the history books." Roy opened the box to show them to him.

Rick snapped to attention. "I would be honored, sir." He watched as Roy removed his Captain's bars and replaced them with Commodore of two stars.

"Congratulations, Vice Commodore Castle." Roy stood rigidly and saluted him with pleasure.

"Thank you, sir. I will do my best not to let you down." Rick had no plans to fail him.

"I'm sure you won't, Vice Commodore. As for going home, all of your belongings as well as your family are already onboard. You're scheduled to leave orbit in the morning. I suggest you get moving," Roy smiled. He had a soft spot for Rick and was happy that his faith in his abilities was not displaced.

"SIR!" Rick saluted him again and resisted the urge to run to the first shuttle he could find to get onboard HIS ship.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Mommy?" Alexis wasn't happy. She needed her mom to comfort her and to tell her everything was going to be all right.

Kate was sitting on their sofa reading her pad. She had a lot to learn and almost no time to learn it. She set the pad aside since she knew that tone of voice well. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" She opened her arms, reached out to her daughter, and waited for her to step into them.

"Where are we going?" She didn't want to move again. She was going to lose all her friends again. Every time they moved she lost friends.

Kate patiently explained, "We're on a ship and it's our job to bring a new planet into the Empire. The Emperor has commanded it so we won't let him down. …Will we?"

That wasn't the answer Alexis was looking for. "What about my friends?" She wasn't going to have any and she knew this was a military ship. There weren't going to be any kids here. She was going to be all alone.

"You'll make new ones." Kate tried to sound enthusiastic and help her feel better. "Did I tell you that this ship has a school? And a daycare? Did I mention that it has a theater where we can watch movies? That there are shops on the Promenade where we can shop? There's even an ice cream shop. Complete with cookies." Kate smiling widely at her.

"School?" Alexis had stopped at that word.

"A school filled with kids. Some of which will be your age." Kate tried to think of anything that would make her feel better.

"School." Alexis suddenly sounded better to Kate. "What about Daddy?" She hadn't seen him for so long.

"Your daddy's coming with us this time. He's in command of this ship. He's in charge." Kate was proud of him. Though she knew he might be in charge of the ship, she was in charge of the three of them at home.

"Daddy's coming with us?" Alexis instantly brightened. Just as suddenly she was depressed. "He'll just leave again," she said sadly, her lip quivering. He was always leaving and she hated it.

"Not this time, sweetheart. This time we're all going to be together for four long years. We're going to spend it on this ship." Four years didn't sound like long enough to Kate, but at least it was a start.

"Four years?" To Alexis that was a lifetime. "Where is he?" Alexis actually started looking around for him. Maybe he was hiding and she needed to find him.

"He's coming. Give him a chance, he'll be here soon. …Are you all unpacked? Have you found Monkey Bunkey?" Kate had let her unpack since she'd insisted that she was a big girl. Alexis shook her head. Kate knew she still had a lot to read, but her daughter needed her. Besides she would stay up all night reading if she had to.

"Let's get you unpacked and all cleaned up. You want to look your best for Daddy, right?" Kate tried to sound happy and excited as her daughter nodded and smiled broadly. "Then let's get started. Let's impress your daddy when he gets here. We can find your best dress and be all pretty for him." Kate put her down and followed a running child into her bedroom.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick had to go through security just to get on his own ship. He had to place his hand on a pad, recite his code, and have it verify not just his palm print, but his voice and code as well. Only when they all saw green was he allowed to cross to his ship.

Once there he found two people. One was a woman who greeted him. "Welcome aboard, commodore." She saluted him. The other was a heavily armed guard in full combat armor. You couldn't even see his face. You couldn't miss the cannon he had for a weapon, though. He didn't say a thing or more a muscle. Still Rick was betting he was being given the once-over.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. There may be some late items arriving so don't close up just yet. Have them sent to my cabin when they do arrive." Rick had made a stop on the way to his ship. One item for his wife and one for his daughter. He was hoping both would like what he'd gotten them.

"Yes, sir. Do you need help finding your way?" She would summon a crew member if he did. This ship was pretty big and even she didn't know where everything was.

"I'm sure I can manage." Rick did his best to hide the fact that he was already lost.

The lieutenant said nothing else and let the commodore walk into his ship. She noticed that he turned the wrong direction if he wanted to reach either his cabin or the Bridge. Still he might have someone he wanted to see, so she dismissed calling out to him.

Rick saw people everywhere. The whole ship felt like one big anthill. Most simply walked past him with either a nod or, "commodore."

He finally found an empty corridor that was remarkably short. It allowed him to touch a wall panel, of which he had already seen several. "Where is the commodore's cabin?"

"The commodore's cabin is on the Command Deck, rooms 101, 102, and 103. Directly across from the Bridge. Do you require a map, commodore?" The computer was either too smart for its own good or just stupid enough. It showed him a 3D map of how to get there anyway.

Rick took a moment to study the map and right himself. It looked like he had a long walk ahead of him. "Thanks." Rick started to walk away.

"I am here to serve, commodore." The 3D display vanished and everything was silent again, save for all the people in the area talking to each other. "That's new." None of the ships he had served on had a system like this one seemed to have.

Rick was walking through corridors and got onto a transit pod. "Command Deck." Then he felt the pod start to travel. What he hadn't realized at the time was that the pod itself was made of clear glass-like material, if not infinitely more strong. He learned that as his pod whooshed past the three decks that made up the open air Promenade that was filled with shops. "WHAT THE HELL!?" He went past it so fast that he missed most of it.

"I am so finding out more about this ship." Rick said to himself. The pod took him to the Command Deck and he stepped out into a short corridor. He feared he was going to be up all night just studying the map of how to get around this place. It wouldn't look good for the commodore to get lost on his own ship.

He started down the corridor but only found two doors. One was to the right and one was to the left just as the corridor ended. Rick looked the one on the right over and saw a security pad. "Naturally." That told him that was the Bridge, that it was locked, and likely had a heavily armed guard just inside the door. Complete with his own cannon that would blow a hole in him.

But the one to the left had no such pad. What it did have was a small blue panel that was a little low, he thought. Still he put his finger on it and watched it glow for a moment before the doors opened.

"WOW! So this is how commodores live!" He had never seen anything like it before. Even Roy's office didn't look this nice.

" **DADDY!** " Rick saw a well-dressed little girl with long orange hair that was flying everywhere as she ran right for him. Rick had just enough time to kneel down and let her land in his arms.

"PUMPKIN!" He knew he had missed her, but it wasn't until then that he realized how much. Rick hugged her for all he was worth.

When he pushed her just far enough away, without actually letting go of her, he felt his tears starting in his eyes and saw hers rolling down her soft cheeks. "You've grown." Rick was betting it was a growth spurt that he had naturally missed out on.

"I'm a big girl, Daddy!" Alexis stated proudly. Then she let go of him and stepped back. "Like my dress? Mommy bought it for me." Alexis twirled around to show it off.

"You're amazingly beautiful, pumpkin. How did I ever get so lucky to have a daughter like you?"

He hadn't expected an answer but his daughter had one for him anyway. "You married Mommy."

"And just where is Mommy?" He had seen his daughter who he loved fiercely, but just where was his wife?

"Mommy's putting on makeup." Alexis wished she was old enough to wear makeup, but her mother kept telling her she was going to have to wait until she was older.

"Well let's go find her. What do you say?" Rick stood up, took her hand, and let her guide him to their bedroom since he had no idea just where it was.

They were only about halfway across the living room when the door opened and out stepped his wife. He stopped in his tracks. She was drop-dead gorgeous.

Rick knew almost all Elasians were beautiful. Even the men were damn good-looking. He had always wondered just what his wife had seen in him. The men of her race were far better looking than he was. Still she had married him, bonded herself to him, and he to her.

Her smile at seeing him lit up the room and only made her more beautiful. "Daddy's here, Mommy." Alexis was beaming. She had both parents in the same place at the same time.

Kate walked up to him and made sure to let the long slit in her dress show her long legs as she walked. She smiled even wider and felt her blood rush to her core as he looked her over. STARS, but her husband was handsome! She had counted herself lucky to have found him. Almost all Denubians like her husband were ugly in her race's eyes. Her husband was an exception. It didn't hurt that he was a hunk underneath that suit, either. She knew it was partly because he was born on a heavy gravity planet, but still he had muscles and she had missed running her fingers over all of them.

"Hello, Husband." Kate gazed into his eyes and found only love like she always had.

"Hello, Wife." Rick looked down, then looked up her body, and looked directly into her eyes. He saw her grin, knowing just what he'd just done. It pleased her greatly that he still found her beautiful and sexy.

"Or should I say _commodore?"_ Kate's smile only got wider since she already knew something he hadn't until Roy had told him.

"Roy blabbed, I see." He was going to have to get him for that.

"You can thank him later, Husband." Kate couldn't wait any longer; she stepped into him and kissed him deeply. Rick kissed her back and she felt his hands roam over her bare skin since her dress was backless and braless. Kate let a soft moan escape before remembering that their daughter was standing right there.

Alexis for her part was beaming at her parents. She secretly loved seeing them kissing. It told her that her parents loved each other which meant she got to keep both of them. Still, "EWW!" She spun so she didn't have to watch for long. She heard both of them chuckle softly and felt two kisses to the top of her head. It told her that she could turn around now.

Rick frowned a little. "Isn't it past your bedtime?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

"No, I'm a big girl now. I can stay up later," Alexis argued, not that she'd even tried this on her mother yet.

Kate arched her own eyebrow at that. "Thirty minutes and then it's time for bed, young lady. Daddy's here now and he's not leaving. You can have breakfast with him in the morning." Then Kate added softly so hopefully only her husband heard her, "As soon as we figure out where breakfast is." Neither she nor Alexis had been on this ship long.

"Why don't you go show Daddy your new room. I'll make us a drink to celebrate." Kate watched Alexis drag her husband off to see her room. It brought a smile to her lips.

He was back a short time later. "Where's Alexis?" It was just him and she had three drinks ready. Only their two had any alcohol, Alexis's was a child's drink.

"She started yawning so I helped her get ready for bed and kissed her goodnight." Rick accepted his drink, took a sip, and then set it down as he watched Kate put hers down without sipping it. Then they kissed by smashing their mouths together and let their hands start roaming.

"It's been four months, my Husband." Kate let her hand wander a little lower to find him already hard and ready for her.

"Four very long torturous months, my Wife." Rick cupped his hands over her breasts. Kate moaned softly. "First, though." He ignored the look she gave him because he was teasing her by waiting longer.

"You don't happen to know just where we're going?" Rick hadn't bothered to read his orders. His focus was on getting here, greeting his daughter, kissing his wife, then stripping her of whatever it was she was wearing and making love to her ALL NIGHT LONG!

Kate grinned at him after she recovered and sorted out his little game. "I've done a little reading." She turned her head to look at the pad that was still on the sofa and saw that her husband did the same.

"Some dinky little planet far from here in a minor arm of our galaxy. The locals call it EARTH."


	2. Chapter 2

**Empire**

 **Chapter 2**

Kate was happy that her husband dismissed the planet's name and focused on her. His brow furrowed in concern. "Which way is our bedroom?" It was embarrassing since he was the ship's commodore, but he had no idea.

Kate smiled, led him to their bedroom, and closed the door behind her. With just two simple pulls she allowed her dress to fall to the floor, revealing that she was totally naked underneath.

"Too many clothes, my Husband." Kate reached out and tugged to get his shirt off so she could run her hands across his bare chest. She smiled as she saw that while she was tugging his shirt up over his head, he was working on pushing his pants down.

Kate threw his shirt somewhere and then knelt down to help him with those pants. It exposed his shorts and gave her a view of his large hard cock. She ran her hand over it and watched it quiver involuntarily which had her smiling.

She spoke directly to his cock still hidden in his shorts. "Did you miss me?"

"More than you can imagine," Rick answered, not realizing that she'd been addressing his cock. Kate smiled to herself and thought it was amusing that he hadn't got it. She doubted that his cock missed her pussy nearly as much as her pussy missed his cock.

"You're still big and so hard, my Husband." Kate played at lowering his shorts to torture him, though it was costing her as she could feel her pussy aching for his cock to be inside it.

Kate finally released his cock from its prison and let his shorts fall to the floor. Doing so allowed her to wrap a hand around his cock then give it a lick from his balls to the tip. She listened to him groan in pleasure. Besides being handsome this was one more thing she was thankful for. All Denubian males had really impressive cocks when they were hard. A lot of women were willing to overlook their looks in favor of getting their hands and pussies on such big cocks.

Her husband was no different, save that he was incredibly handsome. He had quite a prodigious cock. She couldn't wait for her pussy to adapt to his size again so that he could really fuck her like she desired.

"So hard, so big." Kate swirled her tongue around its head and listened to her husband groan. Her only wish was that she could wrap her lips around it, take it inside her mouth, and maybe down her throat. But he was too big for that. She'd tried countless times. She just couldn't do it. Still her husband had never complained about her inability to give him blow job. So she licked and kissed his cock from it base to the slit at the tip.

"KATE!" She was teasing him and he knew it. It was just that when she did this he had so little control that he couldn't stop her.

She stopped long enough to smile. Her teasing his cock was having its desired effect. "Yes, my Husband?" She teased some more by taking away her tongue and using her hands to stroke his cock.

"Kate, please!" She either needed to finish him or let him fuck her.

Kate smiled even wider. Then she stood up, kissed him deeply, and searched his mouth with her tongue. "You want to fuck me, my Husband?" she taunted him some more.

However she'd left his cock and it allowed Rick to regain some control. So he quickly took her in his arms, listened to her squeal in shock, and carried her to their bed with her hands locked around his neck.

Rick carefully placed her on the bed and kissed his way down her body, feeling Kate pushing his head lower and lower. Finally he reached her passage and found her soaking wet. He listened to her moan when he inserted a finger inside her. Rick quickly added another finger and listened to her moan even louder. Then he started licking her pussy and ignored her clit.

"BABY, PLEASE!" Now it was her husband doing the teasing.

Rick really didn't want to but he could focus on her pussy later, so he stood up. "Roll over and get on your hands and knees for me." He smiled when she quickly did as he asked.

He ran the tip of his cock up and down her slit, teasing her. "BABY, PLEASE!" Kate couldn't take it much longer. Rick relented and started pushing and was met with a little resistance. Still he pushed until the head of his cock made it inside her.

"More, Husband, all of it." She had taken all of him before and she wanted all of him this time.

Rick only stopped when his balls touched her body and left it there to allow her time to adapt.

"Fuck me, Husband, please baby. …I need you." Kate had waited four long months for this.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate was sore and it felt great. She slipped out of bed, left her sleeping husband behind, and went to the bathroom. After relieving herself she looked in the mirror. What looked back at her was a woman that looked happy and completely fucked.

She spotted a mark on one of her breasts and leaned in closer to get a better look. Then she saw a mark on her neck. That had her spreading her legs and looking at her thighs. It was here that she saw still more marks.

"He's marked me." Instead of feeling upset she felt loved and wanted. When she stood up she saw her naked husband standing right behind her. She watched him step into behind her and slip his arms around her.

"Because you belong to me, Wife." Any other woman might be mad at the remark, but Kate knew who she belonged to. She had married and bonded with him willingly.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Husband." Kate got an idea and reached a hand behind her and found he was hard yet again. Excited, she placed her hands on the vanity and bent over. "Fuck me again, my Husband. I need you inside me." Kate smiled when she saw him smiling in the mirror and soon felt him sliding into her pussy.

Rick had only just started moving inside her when he heard, "MOMMY?"

Kate hung her head and groaned; she felt her husband pulling out of her. "She probably just needs a glass of water." Kate bent down to kiss the head of his cock. "Don't go away, I'll be right back." Kate went into their bedroom and searched for a robe before heading across the living room to Alexis's bedroom.

Rick stood in front of the mirror, stroking his hard cock with his hand. It looked and felt like it had been for the last four months without his wife.

Kate was soon back. "She just needed… Take your hand off of that thing! It belongs to me now. I'm your wife and lover. It's my job to take care of you. I don't ever want you touching yourself again, Husband. I'm here now. Promise me." Kate looked him in the eye. "Baby, if you need release, talk to me. I'm here for you and I always will be. …Promise me." Kate really needed for him to promise her. But he was delaying his response. "Baby?"

Rick had gotten used to bringing himself to completion. "I promise, my Wife." It was amazingly difficult for him to promise and it had him searching his heart to understand why.

"Good, now where were we before we were interrupted?" Kate smiled, placed her hands on the vanity, and bent over. She only smiled again when she felt him start to enter her pussy.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They were both now content and were dressed in robes, sitting on the sofa side by side with as much of each pressed into the other as they could. They both had a pad in hand and were reading.

"We have three levels of Promenade with a total of eight shops per floor." Kate had not been expecting to find any shops. This was a military battleship. Still she was happy that they were catering to the children of the crew. "School, daycare, eight different stand-alone restaurants plus the standard buffet food. Beauty salon, spa, what does this ship not have?" Kate was amazed and kept reading.

"Standard Engineering, it mentions a new Bridge design. Wonder what that is? Ship's weapons; we actually have a dozen fighters out of two of the landing bays. What are these?" Rick showed the picture to his wife who shrugged; she'd never seen them before.

He did a search for them and read about them. "NO WAY!" Rick had never heard of them before. But then this was the biggest ship he had ever been assigned to. "We have 100 million of them stored onboard." Whatever they were they had a lot of them.

That had Kate stopping reading and listening to her husband. Why would they have so many?

"They call them _Transformers._ We're expected to use them on the target planet to search out and destroy what we want them to. They're also expected to be used as law enforcement." Rick was amazed and kept reading. "They're gem-based and start out the size of a standard egg. There are five different variants. Apparently they expand out to assume different forms and then they travel the planet under their own power." Rick brought up all five forms and showed them to his wife.

Kate raised an eyebrow and went back to reading her own pad. She decided on memorizing the floor plan so that she could take Alexis to school and daycare as well as how to get to the Promenade levels so that she could go shopping.

Rick changed to the crew so he could evaluate who he had and what their background was like.

"Uh-oh!" Rick saw a potential problem and it got Kate's attention. "Sorenson's assigned to this ship."

"Will's on this ship?" That was news to her.

"Is that going to be a problem? I can have him reassigned and replaced with a new crew member," Rick quickly offered since he saw him being here as a possible issue.

"Will is in my past, my Husband. We're married and have a daughter. Plus we're bonded; even if he has any interest in me there's nothing in my heart for him any longer," Kate assured him. "If you transfer him it may adversely affect his career." She had no interest in him but she also didn't want to be part of destroying his career.

"Fine, he can stay. But if he becomes a problem I'll space him. Old boyfriend or no." Kate was his now and he had no intention of sharing her with anyone, especially that asshole.

Kate went back to reading. "Looks like we don't have much on this planet of choice. They are called _Humans."_

Rick brought up a picture of one. "They resemble us, interesting." Kate took a peek and went back to reading. Her husband was much better-looking than that male.

"They estimate that there are just over 6 billion on the planet. Talk about overcrowding. How do they feed themselves?" He didn't think that number was sustainable.

"Husband, we are the only ship assigned to this planet. We're going alone. No destroyers to accompany us, no support ships to make parts and resupply." Kate was shocked. No battleship ever went anywhere alone.

That had Rick looking at her pad to see where she was and then changed his pad to match hers and started reading. "This has to be wrong," Rick muttered. He was thinking about calling Roy immediately until he realized what time it was. He would no longer be in his office.

Kate was reading further ahead of him. "We get a supply ship in two years time. It's going to take us four months just to get there. That means four months for any of our signals to reach home." They would need to know what they would want a good five months – if not longer – ahead of time or not get what they want.

Rick changed back to the personnel and started reading. "Who's my Exec?" He had found everyone else but not him or her yet.

"I am, Husband. Captain Castle, at your service, commodore Castle." Kate beamed at him and leaned across to kiss his cheek.

"You got a promotion!? When did this happen and why didn't you tell me?" He wasn't upset, just surprised. Though he was also very happy for her.

"Roy called me into his office, told me I was being reassigned, and that Alexis was going with me. Then he told me who was going to be in command. ...Congratulations, Husband." Kate leaned across to kiss his cheek again. She was proud of him.

"Captain Castle and commodore Castle." Rick liked the sound of it. "Four years together in the same place." It felt like a dream to both of them.

"Roy likes you, Husband. He's a good friend." Kate was sure this was all his doing and she needed to find a way to thank him for it.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate opened her eyes and wasn't sure where she was. In her sleepy mind nothing looked familiar. Even weirder was the fact that one side of her was cool and one side of her was warm. Add to that she felt something on one of her breasts. It took a moment for her mind to start functioning. She was in quarters, on her new ship. She was its captain and her husband had overall command. HUSBAND! Kate turned her head and found that she was actually sleeping on him. He was holding her in place with a hand on her bare breast.

She hated to move and destroy this moment but she really needed to pee. "Alexis," Kate whispered, she needed to check on her as well.

She removed her husband's hand from her breast with reluctance and began to rise. His sleepy voice reached her ears. "No, stay."

"Sorry, Husband, but I need to pee and check on Alexis." Maybe if her husband hadn't moved after she had accomplished her tasks she would return and put his hand back on her breast.

Rick shot up into a sitting position, almost dumping her on the floor. "ALEXIS!" He was now wide awake. Then he looked around and saw that both of them were in robes. Her top was open and exposing one of her lovely breasts and that was when he felt a breeze.

He looked down and saw his limp cock exposed. Then he looked at his wife. A guilty look flashed across her face. "It's been four months, Husband," Kate said defensively and headed to their bathroom to pee. Then she walked across the living room to reach Alexis's room and found him picking up both of their pads that they'd been reading all of last night. Until they had fallen asleep with each other, it would appear.

She was smiling widely with the knowledge that that was going to happen nightly for the next four years. "You're smiling, my Wife," Rick noted and wanted to know why.

Kate stopped next to him and reached down to take hold of him. "Four years every night in the same bed, Husband." She gave him a quick kiss and headed to Alexis's room.

She saw the time as she walked. "It's late, Husband. Go shower and get dressed. I'll get Alexis ready, take her to daycare, and meet you on the Bridge." She hoped she remembered the ship's floor plan well enough to find it.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Where's Daddy?" Alexis was afraid he was gone yet again.

"Your father's on the Bridge, which is where I need to be. We need to get you to daycare. You get to meet the other children and make new friends." Kate hoped that this would go well. Otherwise this deployment was going to be hell for all of them.

"School?" Alexis questioned since that was where she wanted to be and meet more new friends.

"Either your father or I will arrange it after our shift. School will probably not start for a few more days. You'll just have to make due with daycare to find new friends," Kate said and helped her with her shoes.

"Will Daddy read to me at night?" Alexis had a lot of dreams herself.

"I'll make sure of it, sweetheart. Now let's go. I have to get to work." Kate took her hand, walked her to the transit pod, and asked for the Daycare Center. Thankfully it took off and deposited her right where she wanted to be. Kate was smiling a little as they walked into the drop-off area. This might be easy after all.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick put in his code to access the Bridge and watched the door hiss and open to one side for him to enter. Stepping in, he commented, "This is different but still recognizable." Some of the seats looked familiar and yet the entire layout was different.

Someone spotted him and called out, "commodore ON THE BRIDGE!"

Since they were still docked to the station everyone stood up straight. "At ease." Rick knew if they were out in space and they actually had something to keep them occupied they wouldn't have done that. Though he still would have been announced.

Rick saw his chair right in front of him. It was surrounded on three sides by small screens. There were two larger ones right in front of him.

In front of him was Navigation and Control. Between them and right in front of his chair was a huge semi-transparent globe that he could keep an eye on things outside the ship through.

To either side were two stations. One would be Engineering. The other would be Communications. Another would be the Science station and the final one would be Maintenance or if they were in combat, it would be Damage Control.

In front of Navigation and Control were three more chairs. He had to wrack his brain to remember what they did. One was Civilian Control. The center seat was Scanning and the third was Defense or Counter Offense station.

In front of those three seats were the glass steel panels that allowed a view looking forward so that they had actual eyes on what was in front of them. He could also see each scimitar that was to either side and reached out in front of them. At the end of each were their primary weapons. While the bridge and the design of the ship was new, the weapons were standard fare.

Rick sat down at his seat and noticed that only one seat was missing and that was the control chair where the captain of this ship would sit. He knew exactly where his wife was so he wasn't angry and didn't ask.

"Report." He needed to hear from each station.

"Power is at the ready when you command," one answered.

"Course for designated planet is set," another reported.

"Control has signaled that the last of our supplies have been stored. Two of which are being delivered to your cabin, sir."

"Civilians are ready for transit. All shops are presently closed," someone replied.

"All weapons are presently cold. All munitions and transformers are stored. Our storage bays for replacement are also full," another announced.

"No enemies are on sensors so all defenses are cold," a young voice proclaimed.

"Control is still clearing a lane for us to transit out of the system. They estimate another 10 minutes before we can engage engines," a female reported.

That only left one report. Dressed in her uniform, his wife entered, went to her station and began pressing panels, and speaking to crew members.

"We are ready to leave, commodore. Control indicates that only one ship is presently in our designated path. It will be moved by the time we have detached all umbilicals from the station," Kate reported.

"Detach all umbilicals and inform Control we are maneuvering for transit." Rick heard two _Aye Sirs,_ like he should.

"Course set; we are ready for transit, sir."

"Bring us to half standard speed," Rick called out and looked at his globe to make sure there were no ships, no matter how small, in his way. Then he looked down at one of his smaller screens to monitor the power consumption.

"Bring us to three quarters standard speed." Rick wanted to clear the system and get moving. It was going to take four months and he suspected they were all going to need those four months.

Eventually they were where he wanted them to be and pressed a panel on his chair. "All stations, this is commodore Castle. Prepare for wormhole transit." Rick pressed the panel again.

"Navigation set course and prepare for transit. Build us a wormhole and let's get started on our journey," Rick ordered.

"All stations report ready…, commodore." Kate needed to get used to saying that.

"Wormhole ready, sir."

"Take us in and set us at three quarters wormhole speed." Rick watched through his globe to see outside. They watched as a hole formed that was spinning; they surged forward, entered it, and vanished to the naked eye or anyone scanning them.

"Power set and speed nominal, commodore," Kate reported.

"Wormhole is stable. No other wormholes are intersecting ours at this time. At present speed transit is estimated at four months, two days, eight hours, sir."

He was happy and decided on his first surprise. "Captain, sound General Quarters." It was time to see what his crew was made of.

Kate raised an eyebrow that her husband was doing this so soon. "Sounding General Quarters." It was an order after all and this was still a military ship regardless of the civilians onboard.

The Bridge lights changed to blue and the place went dark everywhere. It allowed all of their respective scenes and especially the globe in the middle to brighten up.

Three minutes and two seconds clicked by. "All stations report they are at Battle Stations," Kate said and waited for what she knew he was going to say.

"That's unacceptable!" Rick was sickened by the speed of his crew. "We need to do much, much better, Captain. At that speed we could have half of one of our scimitars blown off." He shook his head.

"Keep us at Battle Stations for another thirty minutes and then go back to normal. In two hours I want another Battle Stations drill. Until we can get it under two minutes we will keep doing it," Rick ordered.

"Aye, commodore." Kate actually agreed. Their speed was pathetic. She just hoped Alexis wasn't getting scared. She knew about all this but had never actually lived through it.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They were on their fourth Battle Stations drill. "commodore, Daycare reports some of the children are frightened," Rick was told by one of the stations. It was troubling enough that Kate turned to look at him.

"She needs to learn." Rick knew that things could be worse during a real attack. Kate turned back around, paid attention to her screens, and prayed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Empire**

 **Chapter 3**

Rick was satisfied when they'd finally gotten it below two minutes so he canceled any further Battle Stations drills for now since they were still in Empire-controlled space and would be for several weeks. Today's time spent on the bridge was mostly a little boring. It was learning how to work as the day crew and how to use their controls properly.

Kate was more than ready to end her day on the bridge. It had been filled with solving people's problems. It was a new ship and while they had cleared it for use, it still had a few bugs that needed to be worked out. They were quickly learning that having civilians onboard was a little more challenging.

She had spent her day sending maintenance crews to various cabins. _The water wasn't hot enough. The water was too hot. The tub failed to drain. The lights in one of the storage rooms for the jewelry retail space were all out. The owner for one of the stores couldn't get his own safe to open._ The only really exciting part of her day had been when her husband had started moving from station to station and had run a finger up her arm causing goosebumps to form in its wake.

"I stand relieved." Kate signed out and let the night shift take over. She smiled at her husband as she headed for daycare to collect their daughter.

"Mommy!" Alexis ran right for her and ran straight into her open arms.

"Did you have a good first day?" Kate wanted to find out if she had been scared about all the Battle Stations drills her father had ordered.

"It was cool!" Alexis was all smiles and a lot of Kate's worries vanished. "There was all these noises that happened all day long. It scared some of the kids, but not me. I'm a big girl." Alexis was proud of herself.

Kate felt more of her worries vanish. Still she needed to talk with the workers here to make sure she had done well and not been a problem.

"I want you to wait right here for me. I need to talk with someone then we can go home." Alexis nodded and Kate went in search of one of the employees.

Kate asked her questions. "Alexis has been a dream. At first she was concerned about all the alarms but she adapted quickly and was actually helpful with the other younger children. I'm not sure yet but I think she's made a really good friend. That's her over there with her mother." She nodded her head so as not to point.

Kate looked and saw a young girl about Alexis's age who was just as thin, had really long black hair instead of long orange hair, and she appeared to be smiling as she talked to her mother. Then she watched as the girl pointed at Alexis.

She thanked the worker for the information and returned to her daughter. "I hear you may've made a friend today." Kate tried to be careful about saying it was set in stone.

"Her name is Paige, she's nice. Mommy, can she come over and play?" Alexis asked softly since she wasn't sure what her mommy or daddy would say.

Kate really wanted to say _let's wait until she's a really good friend_ but Alexis had gone through enough already. "Okay, let's ask her mother." Kate caved in quickly and walked them over to the two.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Alexis was hungry but had been told they had to wait for her father. It was just that that was a long time ago. "Please, Mommy. I'm so hungry!"

"Just five more minutes, sweetheart. Do you know what you want to eat?" That was her first test since Alexis had proven to be a finicky eater. What was good one day was hated the next. Kate was satisfied when she saw her nod.

Finding out just what that was went out the window when her husband finally showed up. "DADDY!" Alexis ran right for him and right into his arms.

"How was daycare?" he asked, knowing that his wife had likely already asked her.

"It was cool! I made a new friend. …Daddy, can Paige come over to play?" Her mother had been noncommittal about it, so of course she asked her dad.

"I talked with her mother, we just need to get our timing right." Kate hadn't said no like her daughter was suggesting. But she hadn't said yes either.

He did his best not to say no to her. "Sounds like we wait for Paige's mother to say yes."

"You should go wash and change if you want. Your daughter's hungry and has decided what she wants to eat." Kate had already done both and was no longer in her uniform.

"Give me two minutes." Rick kissed Alexis's head, kissed his wife, and headed to their bedroom to wash up just a bit and get out of his uniform.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate was actually happy with her daughter's choice of food. For one thing she didn't have to cut it up; Alexis could do that herself. She did have to remind her to cut the ravioli into small bites, though. She smiled as she watched her daughter happily stuff her face.

"I have to admit, this is different." Rick stopped eating and looked around. It wasn't even the usual drab colors of an Empire military ship. There were actually some bright colors and what looked like real wood in places. "Kind of reminds me of our–" Kate finished his sentence for him.

"Our honeymoon cruise you found on Delnab 5." Kate still couldn't believe that he'd found what in the Empire was an old-fashioned River Cruise that stopped at various local cities. It had proven to be one of the happiest trips of her life so far.

"Something like that, just without all the stops. Or the…bicycles?" Rick tried to remember the word for that contraption.

Kate giggled as she remembered seeing her brand new husband trying to work the pedals and stay upright. All without overusing his natural strength and breaking the pedals off by pumping far too hard.

"And you're still laughing at me," Rick fake pouted since he too thought that was the greatest trip they'd ever had together.

"What's a…beecycle?" Alexis had been listening and was now talking with her mouth full.

"Bicycle, sweetheart, and it's a… it's a…" Kate wasn't sure just how to describe it. "It has two large skinny wheels and you pump pedals to make it go. Sort of like walking only you go faster." Kate wasn't going to begin to start talking about the gears.

"Huh?" Alexis didn't get it.

Since Kate didn't want to try again she decided to distract her instead. "Ready for ice cream?" Kate inquired since her plate was mostly empty and her little girl was slowing down.

Alexis fell for it. "ICE CREAM!" She was out of her seat and bouncing, waiting for her mother.

"You're good, Wife." Rick winked at her and watched the two of them go in search of ice cream.

"This is the best job ever!" He finished his drink and waited for them to come back so they could tell him where the ice cream was located. He wasn't a commodore for nothing.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

 _We move forward about three months_

The entire ship had gotten into a routine of sorts. Most everyone now knew how to get around and where everything was. Likewise most everyone had gone to see what was in the various shops and had decided for themselves if the standalone restaurants were worth going to.

Thankfully they hadn't yet begun to use up all of the movies stored in the computer. Kate, on the other hand, was learning to enjoy the view as her husband worked out lifting weights. She was also learning to enjoy listening to people talk about just how much weight he was lifting. Since her husband was Denubian it meant he had grown up on a heavy gravity planet. This meant that in places that had far less gravity he appeared to be much stronger than normal. Hence while some of the strongest Marines that were onboard were lifting in the upper 200 kg range, her husband was lifting in the 400 kg range. Effectively doubling what the best of them could do.

She also liked to see him flex all those muscles followed by running her hands over all of them later that night while they made love.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Why are you wearing your unfurm, Mommy?" Kate was in her uniform already and not in a dress and it confused her a little.

"I have duty today while your father has the day off. He's going to take you to school and then come pick you up when it's over." Alexis smiled widely at her. "Good. Maybe you can talk your father into going to see a movie after school. I'm going to be a little late for dinner." Kate was going to be in charge of the entire ship today. At least until the night shift came on.

The little girl's smile only got wider. "Be nice for your daddy and nice to your teacher," Kate told her and got a look of _Why would I not be nice?_

Kate glared at her for being so saucy but didn't say anything. "There, all done. Now go find your daddy. I have to get to the Bridge. Be a good girl." Kate kissed her head and let her run out of her room in search of her father.

Kate soon found that sitting in the _BIG_ chair was emotionally rewarding, yet challenging. For one she had access to all of the other stations including her own when her husband sat here. They were basically going straight inside a wormhole so there wasn't really much action happening to speak of. For which she was thankful.

"Captain, I have several wormholes intersecting our own ahead of us. Estimate five minutes at present speed before we reach the first one," Kate was suddenly advised.

Traveling in a wormhole had certain advantages. You could ignore the rules of space and time. What would normally take generations or even centuries to reach could be done in either weeks or months, depending on the distance. Another was that you were all alone inside your wormhole. There was no other ship that traveled with you.

An additional benefit was that no ship could fire at you while you were in a wormhole. That technology had not yet been discovered by the Empire. But it also meant you couldn't fire at a ship that was outside of your wormhole.

It also had certain limitations. One was that you had no communications outside of your wormhole. Meaning they couldn't contact anyone including their home base.

Kate brought up where they were on the main globe in front of her. "The Delphinian Quadrant. I haven't heard of any trouble here." Still she couldn't ignore someone else's wormhole intersecting their own. While the chance was small, it could result in the two ships colliding with each other inside their respective wormholes.

Plus her globe showed that there wasn't just one wormhole crossing their path but three at different intervals. Still the odds were low, but you ignored them at your own peril.

Kate made her choice, even if it meant getting to Earth was going to take longer than four months. "Deconstruct our wormhole and take us to normal space. Raise shields to maximum and place all weapons on standby." Better safe than sorry.

It took two minutes for their wormhole to collapse and eject them into normal space. The second they did Kate saw her globe fill with ships. Lots and lots of ships.

"Captain, I'm reading twenty-two Ortag destroyers, eleven cruisers, and six battleships plus a number of gun boats. There are also…" the lieutenant's eyes widened in surprise, "forty-two civilian ships in the area. Three of our destroyers are engaged with the Ortag ships." She'd never seen the like except in simulations.

Kate quickly deduced that the wormholes were Empire ships responding to delayed calls for help. Since the Yi Sun Shin had been in a wormhole headed for a completely different system they'd never heard it.

Kate pressed a panel on her chair. "General Quarters, General Quarters, this is not a drill." She hoped that would get a reaction time that would beat all of their practice drills.

"Load tubes 1 thru 8 with MIV level 8 X-rays. Bring all weapons to hot status. I want all of our fighters in space in five minutes. Marine, secure the door." Kate more felt than saw the heavily armored and armed Marine who was always just inside the door to the bridge do as he was ordered. Anyone that tried to get in the bridge now was going to get a hole blown in him or her.

Kate snapped out orders. "I want a lock on the two closest battleships for our main weapons. Get a signal to our destroyers already engaged. I want to know what the hell is going on."

She knew that the Ortag were basically nothing more than a pirate nuisance to the Empire. She had never known them to organize any number of ships, let alone this many.

Her Communications Office was busy talking to their destroyers so she opened her own communications line. This one was directed to one of the Ortag battleships.

In the back of her mind, Kate wished her husband was there. He was far more adept at issuing commands and sounding threatening than she was. She was far more peaceful and willing to understand things than her husband was. Still…

"Ortag Battleship, this is the Battleship Yi Sun Shin of the Empire. You will stand down all ships and prepare to be boarded. You are in combat with destroyers of the Empire. This is an act of war and will be treated as such." It was a threat. Not just a threat to these ships, but an act of war meant the Empire could now attack all places that the Ortag claimed control over. That included planets with civilian populations.

"Communications, get a signal to Command that we are engaging hostile Ortag ships that are already engaged with three of our destroyers." Kate was only guessing that those wormholes were more Empire ships coming to help these three. If they weren't, then the Empire needed to know that a battle and possibly a war had just started.

"Captain, one of our destroyers has just been destroyed." Kate moaned. Not just for the loss of the ship and its crew, but for the implications of the action as well. It told her that she was not going to get a response from the Ortag Battleship.

"Captain, all fighters have been launched," an officer informed her. Kate looked at the globe to see their position in relation to the two surviving destroyers.

"Take us to the surviving destroyers. We need to provide support or they're not going to last long," Kate ordered since they were the only big ship of the Empire that was there.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was in regular clothes sitting outside one of the little shops that sold cookies, drinking coffee after seeing Alexis to school. He couldn't remember ever being as enthusiastic about going to school as Alexis was.

Then his world turned upside down with the call of _"_ _General Quarters_ _,_ _General Quarters_ _, this is no drill_ _,_ _"_ in his wife's voice. Caught by surprise, he spat out his coffee, dropped his cup, and began running. Then he came to a complete stop. "Kate will secure the bridge." He turned around and ran to the school.

He found the door locked like it should be. However, as commodore of this ship he had an override code that allowed him into the now locked down school. Once inside he ran to Alexis's classroom. Once there he found the door locked. But this door was a simple manual door, meaning the teacher inside had locked it.

He peered in the small window and saw the kids all huddled together with the teacher in the middle. He started knocking on the glass to get her attention. He saw her look at him but she didn't move and looked down at her students. Then he spotted his daughter huddled with the others. The sight of her had him knocking harder until he saw her see him and watched her face light up. Then she seemed to be talking.

It was only then that the teacher moved to the door and opened it. "commodore, what are you doing here?" She didn't understand why he should be here if this wasn't a drill.

"I can't get to the Bridge. During General Quarters it's secured with an armed guard on the inside. In case we get boarded, which isn't going to happen," he began to explain and then heard, "DADDY!" as a little girl with orange hair flying everywhere ran to him. He knelt down just in time to scoop her up.

"Lock the door again. I'll help you keep the kids calm." Rick moved to the other kids while trying to soothe his own daughter.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"I have a lock on two of the battleships, Captain."

"FIRE!" Kate could do it herself but she was already looking at something else. "Get a lock on four of the cruisers with one torpedo each. Designate C1 through C4, fire when ready," Kate ordered and watched their progress to the last two destroyers.

"Order our fighters to support our two destroyers." Kate saw that four enemy destroyers were headed their way along with two cruisers.

Since she had firing control from her chair she designated those two cruisers as C5 and C6 and fired one torpedo each at them.

"I have a hit on both battleships," one of the crew called out.

"I'm reading secondary explosions on both ships, Captain," another of the crew advised.

"Split the two main weapons and get locks on cruisers now designated C7 through C10 and fire when ready. Reload torpedo tubes 1 through 6."

"Captain, we're being targeted by three of the enemy battleships!"

"Counter measures! Increase speed to flank!" Kate yelled.

"We have hits on the first four cruisers; one of the other designated cruisers is opening a wormhole," one of the officers reported.

"Coward." Kate may have been more of a pacifist than her husband, but she hated cowards. They started this fight, they should finish it or be destroyed. What she barely heard from her crew was agreements.

"The battleships are firing." Kate literally saw three beams headed her way which struck their port side scimitar about midway. They all felt the ship shudder.

"Shields down to 23%. We have fires on twelve different decks. Fire crews are responding," one of the crew informed her.

"Shit!" Kate cursed softly. Those three hits had really hurt.

"Firing on cruisers designated C7 through C10," an officer reported.

"Captain, one of two remaining destroyers has been hit. They appear to be dead in space," another officer advised her.

"I have a communication from that destroyer. The ship's Exec reports the captain's dead and the fires are out of control; the order to abandon ship has been given."

They were down two destroyers and they themselves were hurt.

"Captain, two of our fighters have been destroyed. Another two are damaged and are returning," a lieutenant said.

It sounded to Kate like they were losing this fight. Still a ship of the Empire did not back down. Cowardice in the face of the enemy was a court-martial offense and usually resulted in death.

"Get locks on two of the remaining battleships with the main weapons. Designate B3 and B4," Kate ordered and used her screen to get locks on another four with her torpedoes. She designated them B5 through B8.

"Three enemy battleships have each launched four torpedoes at us," a crew member warned.

"Countermeasures." They hadn't worked on the beams but these were torpedoes and they acted differently. "Prepare to launch interceptors. Fire when in range." Their ship wasn't just all offensive.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The sirens had stopped but suddenly the entire ship rocked and seemed to physically shudder as things fell off of shelves and desks moved. "Daddy!" Alexis wailed.

"We're fine, baby, nothing's wrong. Trust in your mother. We're an Empire Battleship." Rick knew of no stronger ship in the Empire.


	4. Chapter 4

**Empire**

 **Chapter 4**

Kate had finally reached the last destroyer that actually looked a little worse for wear until her ship turned away from it.

"Lock established on two battleships…firing," Robertson informed her.

"Firing interceptors." Kate knew interceptors were basically just that. Small missiles that were used to intercept larger and slower torpedoes.

She herself had a lock on her cruisers and fired her torpedoes. "Reload all tubes."

"We have hits on two of the battleships." They were at least causing damage. Unfortunately they were still outnumbered and hurting from those first hits.

"All torpedoes destroyed," a crew member announced that had Kate thinking again. Torpedoes might be slow but they packed more of a punch than those beams from the battleships did.

Lieutenant Kimbalwyke shifted to look at the captain. "Two more fighters are damaged and returning." That meant the half of their fighters were out of action.

Kate had a lock and fired all eight of her torpedoes, one for each of the destroyers that were closing in to kill their last destroyer.

"Our two shots on the enemy battleships have only done moderate damage to them. They are still active," Kate was told. She didn't see this as good news. The battleships were dangerous, even to them. Worse, they were outnumbered and that needed to change and soon.

"Captain, our destroyer has launched a wave of torpedoes at the battleships. I believe that they have expended the last of their stores," Ensign Zitek reported.

Kate considered that good news, but it meant they were out of this fight. She made up her mind and gave an order. "Navigation, take us to Z minus 2,000 sectors. Lock our main weapons on the remaining cruisers."

She watched as her eight torpedoes totally fried all eight targets that were enemy destroyers. She saw their odds getting better.

"Captain, the remaining battleships have launched a wave of torpedoes at us. Eighteen torpedoes are closing on our position."

It was a lot and Kate feared that it would overwhelm their interceptors and countermeasures. If that happened their weakened shields would collapse and they would be killed.

She had an idea and it was a bold one. "Prepare a wormhole for entry."

"Captain?" Navigation officer Pherson turned to face her. In his eyes she was a coward. Worse she saw the rest of the Bridge crew do the same and actually stopped doing their jobs.

"A short one. Only far enough to be on the other side of the battleships." She saw him grin and turn back to his station.

"Aye, Captain." Pherson thought the captain's strategy was bold. The others also turned back to their stations and resumed their jobs.

"Weapons, once we're on the other side I want you to get locks on all the remaining battleships. One torpedo each and split our main weapons between two of them. Do **not** miss, either of you, or we're dead."

"Aye, aye, Captain." Robertson liked this plan.

"Two minutes until their torpedoes are in interceptor range," an officer called out.

"Captain, I'm reading four wormhole openings forming. They're behind us!" That was bad news as far as he was concerned.

"Reinforcements, no doubt. Maintain the plan. Open a wormhole and take us in." It was time to move and hopefully save all their lives.

Kate heard a lot all at the same time. "Four ships are exiting wormholes."

"We're entering the wormhole."

"Most of the fires are out, Captain."

"Wormhole transit complete."

"Locking on weapons and firing." That last one was Robertson, she noted.

"Captain, the new ships are three Empire Destroyers and one cruiser. They're firing on the remaining battleships," Lieutenant Kimbalwyke announced.

"Those are the wormholes that were intercepting ours." Kate put two and two together. She watched her globe closely and saw her ship's placement as well as all of the remaining enemy ships and the new arrivals of the Empire.

"Captain, two of the battleships are forming wormholes. The remaining operational enemy ships are are also forming wormholes. The cowards are retreating." Kimbalwyke actually raised a hand in victory.

Kate could have chastised her, however, they'd been lucky this day. "Let the cowards run. The Empire will hunt them down and make them pay. Open communications with the Empire Cruiser," she ordered. "Their timing was perfect."

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Daddy?" Alexis needed reassurance. It had been quiet for a while and she wasn't sure what that meant.

"We're fine, pumpkin. Mommy will never let anything happen to us, I promise." Rick had his trust placed in her hands. Not that he had a choice given he was locked out.

"All hands, this is the Captain. Four Empire ships have joined us and we have been victorious. We will remain at General Quarters until this ship and all Empire ships are secure. All civilians will remain where they are."

"See, always trust your mother." Rick looked down at a smiling daughter.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate had the captain of the cruiser on one of her screens. "Your timing was excellent, Captain Ap Curach. I'm sorry to say that one destroyer was lost and one's been abandoned." This little battle had cost the Empire, but it had cost the enemy more. Plus they were still going to pay for this since they were going to be hunted down.

"We didn't expect to see you here, Captain Castle. We were out on patrol when we got the message about a few enemy ships attacking some of our civilian ships. Just before entering our wormholes we got word that it was more fleet-sized." That bit of knowledge concerned him greatly. Though turning back or not engaging them never entered his mind. The Empire did not back down to anyone…EVER!

"We'll remain in the area to lick our wounds and recover. We'll help in anyway that we can. Our medical facilities are at your disposal. We do need to continue on to our mission once that's complete." They still had a planet to conquer and bring into the Empire. Kicking and screaming if they had to.

"We'll pick up the escape pods and send you what wounded we don't have room for. I've never seen a ship quite like yours. The shape is…unusual." Ap Curach even turned his head to get a view of it as he spoke.

Kate simply smiled. "I'll let you do your work and I'll do mine. Signal if you need anything." She ended the communication.

She issued orders. "Get me a damage report and injury report. Keep the torpedo tubes loaded and weapons on standby. Those cowards may yet find something to reinforce their spines and come back." Kate got a number of confirmations in return.

Kate wanted to do some digging so she went searching using her own screens.

"We're on the edge of Empire controlled space. Likely those three destroyers were all that were out here. We were lucky that the patrol was close enough to help." Kate sighed and issued another order. "Communications, get a message to Command. Advise them of the situation. If they were bold enough to attack the Empire here, where else would they be bold enough to try?"

"And where would you run to?" she murmured as she used her controls to change the view of the globe. "Where would you go to hide and lick your wounds?"

Earth, she noted, was still over a month away. What they knew about Earth suggested that they had no space travel. So going there wasn't going to help them. The locals would have nothing and no ability to help them. Still it might be a place for them to hide.

"We need to change our approach to Earth, just in case." It wouldn't be good to drop in and get blown to bits.

Suddenly Kate sat up straight. "Alexis! …Husband!" What she wanted to do was go charging down to the school to check on her daughter. But she still had Bridge duty. Plus since they were still at General Quarters, it meant the Bridge was still secured. The Marine would prevent anyone from getting in and from anyone trying to leave.

She thought about putting an end to General Quarters and transferring command of the Bridge. However, that idea went up in smoke the second she thought about it.

Kate was still stewing in her own juices with worry when she got a signal. It was from the school! Her fear ratcheted straight into overdrive and her heart rate increased dramatically. Her tears of what she was sure was bad news started to form.

Rick's face showed up on the screen. "HUSBAND!" Then a new face got in front of Rick's.

"Hi, Mommy!" Alexis was all smiles since she had been listening to her dad playing up how big a hero her mommy was.

"Alexis, thank the heavens." Kate felt her tears release only for a different reason. She actually started to breathe again. Then Rick's face came back into view.

"How bad is it?" Rick knew they'd been hit. It was just a question of how bad it was.

Kate broke it down for him. "Twenty-two Ortag destroyers, eleven cruisers, and six battleships plus a number of gun boats. Three of the battleships got clean hits on us. There were three Empire destroyers engaging this fleet when we arrived."

Rick actually whistles. "Thirty nine ships versus four. …Sounds like a fair fight." He smiled and Kate grinned since from where she was sitting it had looked like anything but.

"Three Empire destroyers and one Cruiser joined us just in time. The Ortag were routed. Several of the cowards fled." She was trying to tell him that the danger was not yet over.

"Alexis and I will be fine. Just do your job, Wife. …I look forward to thanking you later." He arched his eyebrows at her a couple of times.

Kate did her best to suppress a smile since she knew he was talking about making love to her tonight. She had something she wanted to talk about later as well. They could discuss it after making love tonight.

"I have a preliminary damage report, Captain," they both heard a voice announce.

"Gotta go, Husband." Kate killed the communication and got her now not-as-troubled head back into the game.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"See, I told you to trust your mother." Rick was all smiles as he kissed the top of his daughter's head. He got up to leave the school's office where he was located and went back to Alexis's classroom.

"We're fine, though we'll be staying here for a few more hours. May I suggest a bathroom break for everyone? You take the girls and I'll take the boys," Rick said to Alexis's teacher and soon all of them were out in the corridor headed for a restroom.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate looked over the damage list and the casualty list. The damages were all something they could fix. Since they were expected to be completely alone they actually had a small manufacturing facility onboard. The main problem was that the exterior pieces were going to take weeks to manufacture. All the interior items were small and they had the spare parts on hand. Overall they were going to lose two months because of this incident.

The casualty list was much easier to read. Thankfully there were no deaths and while some of the injuries were serious, the doctors expected for them to make a full recovery in time. At least that was what they'd said before going into surgery.

Kate also got a report that showed that twenty-two people had been transferred to their medical facility. They couldn't leave until all of those people had been treated and transferred back.

"Give me a full system scan. I want to know where each and every ship is presently located. Put it on the globe." Kate waited while talking with the chief of Manufacturing to get a better time frame. She was going to be spending most of tonight writing up her report over all the actions she took during this event.

Kate used her controls to spin the globe so she could see it from all angles. Everything looked clear to her. "Stand down from General Quarters. Cool off the weapons but leave the torpedo tubes loaded for now. Release the Bridge." Once General Quarters was canceled she had no doubt that her husband would come charging up to find out what the hell had happened and what she'd done to his ship.

She pressed a panel on her chair. "This is the Captain. We are standing down from General Quarters. All civilians are free to move around as they see fit. Please try not to interfere with the maintenance people that will be making repairs. Report any damages to control. Captain out." She pressed it again to close the channel.

Kate actually got out of her chair and went over to the Damage Control station. "How bad is it? Are all the droids deployed?" They had a number of maintenance droids, but even with them it was going to take time.

"All droids are deployed, Captain. We'll need time to manufacture the new hull plating and replace all of the damaged internal structure. In addition we need to replace some of the secondary power conduits that overloaded and ruptured. Rough estimate at this time is about two months." As he spoke he pointed out the damaged areas on his screen.

"Place priority on the exterior of the ship. The rest we can accomplish while en route to our assigned planet. Hopefully that will only mean a month's delay." Kate left him and walked over to Communications.

"Send a message to Command. _'_ _Due to damage taken from combat with Ortag fleet our arrival time at planet will be delayed minimum of one month._ _'_ Sign my name and send it," Kate ordered and returned to her command chair.

"Captain, all fires are now out. Environmentals are cleaning the atmosphere and should be finished in fifteen minutes," Ensign Zitek informed her. Kate acknowledged with a nod of her head since she had turned to look at her.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate monitored all of the repairs during her time on the bridge. It wasn't until her relief that was the night crew showed up that she finally let out a long breath and tried to relax. She even watched as the Bridge guard was changed.

All she had to do was go across the corridor to get to her quarters. However, she was stopped by some of the Bridge crew before she could reach her door. "We want to apologize for ever thinking you were a coward. We should have known better." They hung their heads in shame and swore among themselves that they would never doubt her again.

"I don't blame you for thinking it. The maneuver was…unusual. Still this ship performed well. Vastly outnumbered and we made the cowards run for their short-lived lives." Kate was sure the Empire was going to make them pay for their actions this day.

"Robertson, I've put in a recommendation for your actions at Weapons today. Except for those three partial hits, you never missed a single ship. That was nice work. Likely saved all our lives. I'll see all of you tomorrow." Kate would be back at her Control station with her husband in his chair tomorrow.

They knew they were being quietly dismissed and headed for the transit pod. Kate delayed at the door long enough to hear them congratulate Robertson and speculate that they owed their lives to the fact that more Empire ships arrived.

Kate silently agreed with the latter. Even with her little maneuver they might not be here. A couple more hits from those battleships or a couple of interceptors missed and they just might all be dead right now.

"MOMMY!" Kate barely had time to kneel before her daughter crashed into her.

"Hi, sweetheart." Kate hugged her with all the love she could give her. "Were you scared?" Kate worried about nightmares tonight. Only she shook her head.

"I had Daddy and I'm a big girl. Big girls don't get scared." Even if technically she had been scared until her dad showed up at the door.

Kate looked her over and saw that she was in her pajamas. That told her that her husband was around here somewhere. "It's way past your bedtime, young lady. Let's get you tucked in. You have school tomorrow."

"Okay!" Alexis all but skipped to her room with Kate right behind her. She, like her husband, didn't know where this enthusiasm for school came from. But they were thankful for it.

Kate shuffled back across the living room and opened the door to their bedroom. It was there that she found her husband waiting for her.

"You scratched my ship!" Rick did his best not to grin while throwing eye daggers at her.

"I didn't touch OUR ship. The Ortag dented it. …It's going to take about two months to repair all the damage." Kate doubted he knew that small detail.

"Sounds like we're going to be late getting to Earth." Rick softened his features. "You did well, Wife." He was impressed and stepped into her space to hug her then kiss her.

Kate decided that now was the time. He was distracted and more likely to say yes. "Husband…, I want another child. We're bonded and can reconfirm our commitment to each other." That had Rick opening both eyes wide. He remembered quite well her reaction to the first time they had bonded and created Alexis.

"You're sure?" Had she thought this through completely? "It'll mean maternity leave and you'll be banned from the Bridge during that time." Someone was going to have to replace her at her station and he was going to miss having her there.

Kate nodded. "Please, Husband." She didn't know what was going to happen after their four year deployment.

"I'll get the knife," Rick replied quietly as she pulled him in closer so she could kiss him with passion.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

He came back and found his wife already naked and on their bed. He put the knife down, stripped in front of her, and then walked up to her. Since his cock was level with her face she instantly worked at getting him hard. She was doing it for a purpose instead of just doing it for pleasure, though she loved giving her husband's cock a tongue bath. While she did this she reached down and stroked her own outer and inner lips and even gave her clit a quick rub.

"Ready, my Husband." Kate held up her hand and waited. When they had been bonded the first time it had hurt and she expected it to hurt this time as well.

Rick picked up the sacramental knife, held her hand, and gave it a quick slice across her palm. He heard her whimper a little at the pain since it was a deep cut, meant for her to bleed a lot.

He then quickly sliced his own hand open and dropped the knife followed by placing his bleeding palm against hers. The result was instant as both rolled their eyes back into their head.

The sexual need increased quickly as did their own heartbeats. "Fuck me, my Husband. Give me a baby." Kate fell back onto the bed and Rick went with her. He tied their hands together with a strip of fabric from the gown she wore when they were first joined, placed the head of his cock at her entrance, and started to push. "Fuck me, baby, please." She needed him to start before she lost her mind in the union.

Kate didn't really remember much half an hour later. Her husband was still inside her and their hands were still bound together. Actually he was forced to stay inside her.

Having her blood mix with his caused the head of his cock to enlarge greatly. He couldn't pull out even if he wanted to. They were locked together. What Kate didn't know was if he had climaxed yet.

She had a plan for that, though, and worked at flipping them until she was on top with him still buried deeply inside her. She saw all the blood; now their connection was complete. His blood was flowing into her and hers into him.

Kate started grinding on his cock that was locked inside her. She had found the first time and now that his large head hit places no man had ever found before.

"Kate?" Rick was slowly regaining his mind.

"Come for me, my Husband. Fill me with your seed." Kate kept grinding on his cock. Between this and the flow of blood she didn't last long and climaxed while biting her tongue since Alexis was close by.

Kate could feel him climax inside her. So much so that looking down told her that it was actually starting to escape her pussy. It was the moment she'd wanted.

"You're crying." Rick saw tears.

Kate collapsed on him. "I love you, my Husband. More than I've ever loved anyone before. You are my life." She felt her heart was more open now than even when they'd gotten married.

"My blood is yours, my Wife. …Boy or girl?" Rick knew it was him that decided, just not consciously.

"Either or both, my Husband." Kate let her eyes close and slipped into sleep. Their hands were still bound and bleeding. If there was an egg, she just had to be pregnant. There was so much of him inside her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Empire**

 **Chapter 5**

Kate had duty again and her husband had the day off. He was spending it with Alexis since there was no school today.

"Captain, we have a communication from Captain Ap Curach," the Communications officer announced.

"This is Captain Castle of the Yi Sun Shin."

"We have received the last of our casualties. Thank you for the use of your medical facilities. We're expecting a hospital ship in a few hours. You're free to continue with your assignment," Ap Curach informed her.

"We were happy to help and will be on our way then." Kate placed a fist over her heart. "Success, Captain Ap Curach."

He did the same. "Success, Captain Castle." And ended the communication.

"Navigation, set a course for Earth. We're one month late already. Enter the wormhole when ready and set speed at three quarters wormhole speed." Kate wanted to try and make up at least a little of that time.

She pressed a panel. "All hands, this is the Captain. Prepare for wormhole entrance." Nothing should happen but you never really knew. The possibility of something going wrong was there, but the probability was low.

"Course set. Generating wormhole. …We are on course at three quarters wormhole speed. Our wormhole is stable, Captain."

Kate was free to review all of the repairs that had been made to her ship and what was left for them to repair. She listened with one ear to the person sitting at her usual Control station handling all the little things that seemed to always pop up. Mostly it was civilians complaining about something with the ship.

But she had something she wanted to talk about so she used her controls to send her a signal. "Ms. Longoria, how goes the food preparation for the upcoming event?" Kate had done a search and had found that there was something worth celebrating.

"I've had to ask a few people if they know how to make it, but we've gotten lucky. Plus we actually have all the ingredients we need." She'd been surprised at that. The main dish was not something she'd ever made before.

"Excellent. I look forward to tasting your cooking." Kate smiled at her and ended the communication. She didn't miss seeing some of her bridge crew from looking at her questioningly.

"It's a surprise. Not to worry, there'll be enough for everyone." The corners of her mouth curved slightly as she kept her secret.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was standing in the ship's pool and was holding onto a floater that his daughter was also holding onto. "Keep kicking, pumpkin. He tried to offer encouragement. "Not that fast. Just nice steady strokes." She needed to slow down. "Do it right first and then do it fast."

"Then can I go on the slide?" She only really only had eyes for the pool's one of two slides. One had a simple curve while the other had two big circles in it and was much taller.

"Just as soon as you prove that you can swim underwater and hold your breath." Rick knew when she went down even the little slide she was going to end up underwater and didn't want her to panic. Yes, there was a lifeguard, but she didn't need to start learning to be scared of the water because he allowed her to rush it before she was ready. He heard her grumble which told him that he was right. His daughter wasn't happy with his decision. Still it beat watching her trying to drown herself.

"You're doing great, Alexis. You can stop now." Rick let her rest before the next skill.

"Now I want you to take some big breaths, then hold one, and drop your head below water. Like this," he demonstrated and then came up after a minute. "Now you try. I'll be right here." He was barely a foot away from her.

Rick watched her do it several times and had her staying underwater for longer and longer times. "Okay, you're ready. Let's go." He swam over to the bottom of the slide while Alexis ran for the stairs. "WALK!" She slowed down a little. If walking as fast as she could be called slowing down.

Rick was at the bottom waiting and all but caught her when she hit the water. He let go and watched her swim a little over to the edge so she could climb out and do it all over again.

After the fifth trip he followed her and got out of the pool. "Ready for the big one?" he asked and watched her nod with enthusiasm.

At the top Rick sat down. "Sit here, pumpkin." There was no way he was letting her go down all alone. She was far too young for this slide.

Once she was secure between his legs he pushed off and down they went, screaming all the way. The second they hit water they went deep and Rick pushed her up to the surface in case she'd forgotten to take a deep breath.

After four more trips Rick was done and Alexis was panting just a little. "Water barrel next," Rick suggested as she nodded again with a wide smile on her face.

"ALEXIS, WALK!" he shouted and watched her slow to a very rapid walk.

They were soon standing under the barrel just off to one side and waiting. Once the barrel filled with water it dumped its contents on your head. "Get ready. Big breath." They both watched it start to tip. Then a huge amount of water cascaded over their heads.

Alexis was dancing after the last of the water hit her. "Again?" She wasn't ready to leave just yet.

"Okay, just once more. Then we grab our towels to get dry and go home. We need to rest before we eat lunch. Do you know what you want for lunch?" Rick had learned like Kate had that she was finicky.

She shrugged. That told him he was in trouble. She might be four but she wasn't above having a temper tantrum if she thought it was necessary.

Rick came up with a plan and hoped that the little place that made them was open. Not every place was open all day long. Mostly just the buffet.

He also had another plan up his sleeve. "If you're a good girl at lunch we'll go get mommy when she gets off work and watch a movie here at the pool while munching on popcorn."

The fact that she was all smiles told him that he had hope for lunch. The only drawback to his plan was that the movie was going to last well past her bedtime. He was betting he was going to be carrying an asleep Alexis home either during the movie or right after.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"You're a good father." Kate rubbed his arm as he carried their sleeping child home to their quarters. "And an even better husband." She loved him with all of her heart.

"She's gaining weight." She was still nothing more than a feather to him, but he was sure there was a difference.

Kate used Alexis's own saying to explain. "She's a big girl," Kate grinned, knowing their daughter was small for her age.

"What are we going to do when she's ready to go out on her first date?" Rick really wanted her to stay this age forever. She was perfect just like this.

"We have lots of time before then, Husband. We still have to get through many more challenges." Kate knew they were coming and they were all big ones.

"Challenges?" Didn't they have enough already?

"When she becomes a woman for the first time." Kate meant her first bleed. "Her first bra. The second she decides that boys aren't yucky after all. Her first time wearing heels. Her first crush that she's convinced is true love." Kate knew there were others. Those were just the ones that randomly came to mind.

"And you want another. …Or two?" Rick wasn't so sure now.

Kate smiled. "Yes, my Husband." She raised up to kiss his cheek. They had only bonded that one time so far. She was waiting to see if it had worked before trying again.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate woke up the next morning and felt her husband right next to her. While she gave a thought to waking him up by giving him a blow job, she felt the need to pee. So she carefully extracted herself from their bed and walked naked to their bathroom. However, peeing was instantly forgotten when she saw herself in the mirror. Yes, her hair had _bed head_ written all over it. But it was what she saw that took her breath away for a moment.

She just stood there and looked at herself. Her hand trembled as she trailed her fingers over the blush that covered her chest. Especially the cleavage between her breasts. Then that same hand moved up to her face and traced her cheeks that were equally flushed.

She watched as tears started rolling down her reddened cheeks. She couldn't stop a small cry from escaping her lips. She should have known what that would cause but she was far too preoccupied. In barely a second her lightly sleeping husband was right behind her. What he saw was lots of tears.

"What's wrong?" Rick slipped arms around her from behind and looked at her in the mirror.

Kate ran fingers down her chest again. It was then that Rick saw the color of her chest and her cheeks. "I'm pregnant, Husband." She turned in his arms and looked him in the eye, running her fingers down his cheek. "I love you. So very much. I don't know how I got so lucky to have such a husband."

"You've got that wrong, my Wife. I'm the lucky one. You, Alexis, and now our new little one are all that's in my heart." Rick leaned down to her and kissed her passionately.

As both looked at each other with love, he said, "We're going to need to start planning. Where is he or she going to sleep?" They only had two bedrooms and that was as big as their space was going to get.

"With us in our room at first." They would figure out the rest later. Kate began planning. "I'm off today so I'll go see the doctor just to make sure. Alexis has school so I'll do it then."

"We need to break this to Alexis and get her ready for a brother or sister," Rick warned. The last thing they needed was a daughter that didn't want to share the two of them.

Then a potential problem came to her mind. "Alexis is having Paige over for a sleepover tonight." If Paige knew what her flush meant, word was going to spread fast.

"We need to tell the Bridge crew at the very least," Rick insisted and Kate nodded her agreement.

"What if it's twins?" She knew her race was prone to having twins. Just not her immediate family.

Rick thought about it for a moment. "We'll get creative. Lose a little living space and shrink Alexis's bedroom. We'll think of something." He kissed her. His wife was perfect. Simply perfect.

"MOMMY!?" They could hear Alexis.

Kate placed a hand on her red chest. "I'll go. We're going to need to talk about this to her. At least an explanation about why you're so red." Rick kissed her again and left to find out what Alexis wanted.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Commodore." Ensign Zitek handed him a pad. Rick was hoping it was what he had asked for.

It took Rick a few minutes to read it all. Little by little a smile crept into his face. It was the damage repair report. They had remained at the combat site for a month to fix all of the outside damage. Half of that had been just making the hull plating and structural reinforcements. The other half had been the manual and mechanical labor.

Most of this report was about all of the interior repairs. Some of the damage had been unexpected. Like a power surge had affected a number of things. One of which happened to have been the walk-ins for one of the standalone restaurants. The operator had scrambled to find a place for everything inside them to be moved to before he lost it all. He'd been closed for weeks.

Rick signed off that he had read it all and handed it back to her. "Thank you." He turned his attention to the globe. They were actually making progress. "Navigation, time until orbit?" Were they going to arrive during the day shift or night shift.

"At present speed we will arrive in eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, Commodore."

Night shift it was then. Not that it mattered. They needed to spend days if not weeks scanning the entire planet. They needed to plan what to do first. The data they had was all just surface information. There was no real depth to what they knew about this planet.

"Maintain course and speed," Rick ordered then left a command behind for the night shift. He wanted them to contact Command and inform them of everything that had happened to them. He knew communications had been sent, but he wanted to make sure.

"Everyone, start making lists of what we need for our first supply ship. Weapons, that includes what it takes to refill our inventory as well as spare parts." They had used up a lot already. Far more than had been anticipated.

"Aye, Commodore," they chorused just as the night shift started filtering in which included the night shift Marine.

"I stand relieved. This ship is yours." Rick started to grin. "Try not to dent it like my wife did." Kate stopped in her tracks and gave him an icy stare. A chuckle broke from his lips as he walked past her and out the door.

"I'll go get Alexis. Do you need anything?" He would stop and get anything she wanted.

Kate thought about it. "No, not really." She was only about four weeks pregnant at this point. She knew her cravings would start in about four more weeks. Based on what she'd wanted with Alexis, she was sure she was going to drive her husband mad. Last time had proved that she'd chosen her husband well. Rick had been an absolute angel through all of it.

She also knew her mood swings would start soon and test her husband's patience with her.

"Husband." Rick had just reached the transit pod. "I love you."

"I love you too, Wife," Rick answered and stepped into the pod. It was time to get his daughter and work on getting her ready for the idea of having a sister or brother.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick and Kate were both back on the Bridge the next day and were taking a little time to read the reports that the night shift had made. He reached one section and adjusted the view on the globe. "WOW! That's a lot of trash." He'd never seen anything like it before. "Navigation, is this mess a hazard?" He hadn't yet looked to see just where they were in orbit.

"Not at this time, Commodore. We're presently in a high orbit. If we go lower I would recommend raising our shields." He wasn't sure any of the junk would damage them, but it was better safe than sorry.

"Maintain orbit for now." Rick was satisfied where they were.

"Commodore, I'm reading basic old-fashioned waves striking us and returning. I believe someone knows we're here."

"Pinpoint where the waves are coming from and store that for later." Rick needed to prioritize what actions needed to be taken first.

"Sir, I have a tremendous amount of communications in the lower bands. Thousands, millions. Some are video and some are audio only. Also some of it's encoded. It will take the computer a moment to decipher them."

"Scan results?" Rick questioned and waited impatiently.

"The planet's very active. I have hundreds of vehicles that are flying in the lower and upper atmosphere. Based on the speed I would think most are private or commercial." He was still trying to figure out what it all was.

"Wait! Sir, I have a large military operation taking place." He had found something and it looked big to him.

Rick changed the globe and had it zoom in. "Numbers?" It looked like a lot to him as well.

"Analyzing now… I have air, land, and sea-based military actions taking place at this time. The computer is still analyzing, however it would appear to be several hundred air-based machines and thousands of land-based units. The sea-based units are far fewer in number." He was still scanning the area to try and get exact numbers.

"Commodore." Kate willed the word to come out instead of Husband. "The areas in question are called Iraq and Afghanistan by the locals. Both areas are a desert environment. I'm still working on who or what is involved in this conflict."

"Keep scanning and record all of it. We need to learn all we can about this planet before we begin the process of bringing it into the Empire." It would join in peace or kicking and screaming. At the moment Rick was thinking kicking and screaming.

"For now place the priority on all military units planet-wide. We need to create a database so we can plan what to do first. For now, let them kill each other. We can fix that later." They were going to be there for four years so they had time on their side.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick came home with Alexis. "MOMMY!" Alexis ran to her as she sat on the sofa. Kate was just fast enough to lay the pad she was holding to one side before Alexis was in her arms.

"Guess what happened today?" Alexis was so very excited.

"I have no idea, what happened today?" Kate took a peek at her husband and the look on his face told her that he already knew. It also looked like he was shocked. That left her puzzled.

"I get to start first grade!" Alexis practically vibrating with joy.

"First grade?" She was far too young for first grade. "How about you go clean up and I'll be right there to help you change clothes." Kate set her down on the floor and watched a very happy and excited daughter run to her room.

Rick sat down next to his wife. "It was news to me, too. It appears that our daughter is reading material meant for third grade children. Actually everything else, including her math skills are in the second grade range." He'd been told that after he'd found out from Alexis.

"And they chose not to tell us?" Kate was starting to get angry. Then it sunk in. "Third grade?" Most of the children in her kindergarten school weren't even ready for first grade yet let alone third.

Rick was all smiles. His little girl was a genius. "Third grade in reading. I'm thinking of letting her read to me from now on at bedtime instead of us reading to her." He chuckled a little since he knew that wasn't going to happen.

Kate placed a hand on her belly. Safe within her was their second baby, maybe the third, too. "Third grade reading level. …How did we miss that?" She'd noticed that their daughter was smart. Just not THAT smart.

"I'm still going to bend her teacher's ear for not telling us first." Kate was going to give her a piece of her mind.

"Third grade." Kate shook her head, wondering what they were going to do with their little genius.


	6. Chapter 6

**Empire**

 **Chapter 6**

It had been two weeks and Kate and Rick were sitting in their living room surrounded by pads filled with information about the planet below them.

"I truly do not believe this planet's going to willingly join the Empire. The inhabitants of this world hate each other far too much. They'll fight to prevent us from forcing them to adhere to the Empire's rules and laws." Kate had hoped for better, but what she'd read so far told her that this planet would join the Empire kicking and screaming the entire way.

"Agreed." Rick was willing to concede that much. "We need to determine where to deploy the transformers first. My first thought is the war that's being fought at the moment. Even if it is a one-sided war." They could possibly wait for one side to win and then deploy them. However, neither of them could really say just how long the war was going to last.

"The next question is do we simply allow the transformers to expand out from that location, or do we recall them and deploy them elsewhere?" Rick wasn't sure that was a good idea but he wanted his wife's opinion.

"The major powers appear to be this United States of America and a place that's called Russia. If I remember correctly the United States is the major player in this war, while their opponent has equipment provided from Russia." Kate thought she had it right.

"So do some of the countries that are assisting the United States." He shook his head. "…Confusing." If they were allies with the United States why did they have military units made by Russia? "Plus Russia isn't involved with this conflict." It looked to him that they were just sitting there and watching.

"I have a counter idea, Husband. What if we deployed the transformers to their places of manufacture? If we remove their ability to replace what they're losing, perhaps that'll aid us in the long run."

Rick's brow furrowed as he considered what she'd said. "Did you also see how many thermonuclear devices this planet has? There are enough of them to destroy this world several times over." Then he offered an alternative. "Perhaps that's where we should start."

That had Kate sitting back to think. "We can't allow them to destroy their own planet. The Emperor will **not** be pleased. We're here to add them to the Empire, not to allow them to kill each other off and render the entire planet uninhabitable." She was beginning to agree with him.

"So we start with the destruction of their nuclear armament capabilities. It looks like the United States and Russia have the majority, though if they have them I'm betting others do as well. We need to do some more detailed scans. Focus on the nuclear material to make these devices. After we've destroyed them we need to focus on what it takes to build them. We can't allow them to replace what we destroy." Rick set his pad off to one side.

"There's one more thing we need to decide." Kate waited for him to explain. "Their orbit's filled with trash. We need to decide what to do with it," Rick said. "I'm thinking of forcing most if not all of it into their atmosphere and letting it burn up."

"Will all of it burn up?" Kate had a problem if it didn't.

"Not all of it, no. And there's something in orbit that's the largest piece which we need to get a closer look at. The whole thing's about the size of one of our fighters except it looks like it was built in pieces." It made no sense to him.

"That reminds me." A look of sadness crossed Kate's face. "You know we lost two pilots when their fighters were destroyed during the battle. We lost another yesterday from his injuries. The medical staff and doctors did their best but they couldn't save him."

Rick growled his displeasure. "The Empire will hunt the Ortag down and make them pay for that attack. I don't know what possessed them." He thought they had to know that the Empire wasn't going to let them get away with that without some kind of retaliation.

"Perhaps we don't know the whole story," Kate suggested and saw the look her husband gave her for that. "The Empire will hunt them down."

They reached a decision. "We can't have them blowing up a planet of the Empire. We'll get rid of their ability to make more. That'll include the mines that provide the required materials," Rick stated as Kate nodded her assent.

"So what would you like to do now? Alexis is clean and in bed. WITH a glass of water." Rick looked over at his wife.

Kate did her best to suppress her smile. "We could keep reading."

"We could do that. Or we could sneak out and get ice cream." Rick wasn't sure they were open this late, though.

"We could do that, too. But I have a better idea." Kate reached down and gently cupped his balls. "You could take me to bed and fuck my brains out," she purred.

"You always did have the best ideas." Rick stood and pulled his willing wife close. Then he easily scooped her up and carried her to their room.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick entered his code to get onto the Bridge while Kate took their daughter to school. Part of the night crew was still here since he was a little early. "I relieve you," he told the officer sitting in his chair.

"I stand relieved. All of last night's scans are in the computer, Commodore. Only one area of the planet seems to be heavily involved in combat at this time. We've determined that there's fighting on a much smaller scale across the entire planet," she reported then exited the Bridge.

"Is this entire planet trying to kill each other?" Rick didn't understand what could drive so much hatred. "It's of no significance; we're going to fix all that."

Rick watched his wife take her station and gave her a moment to catch up on what the night crew had done.

"Weapons, we have scans of all the fixed missiles that are tipped with nuclear weapons. Deploy one transformer per missile. Launch when ready." It was time to start cleaning up this planet.

Rick waited and waited. "Transformers deployed, Commodore," Robertson reported. It still left them with a lot.

"We also have scans on all the more portable missiles tipped with nuclear weapons. Deploy one transformer to each of those locations." Rick waited for a confirmation of that order.

"Transformers deployed, Sir." Those two combined had reduced their number, but they still had untold thousands left onboard.

"Now use the scans we have for all of the uranium mines that are on this planet and deploy two transformers to each mine. They need to be collapsed and closed." Rick knew that even after this there were two more things yet to do. Still he waited for confirmation.

"Transformers deployed, Sir."

"Next item. They have thousands of locations that contain small amounts of uranium that per our scans appear to be contained in small tubes or shells. Assign two transformers per each stockpile location." Rick waited for a confirmation.

As with the others, it took Robertson a few minutes to assign and program each transformer. "Transformers deployed, Commodore."

"One last thing for today. Our scans show that they also have these weapons on ships. Deploy five transformers per ship. Have them destroy everything on each ship." Rick knew today was going to be a very busy day since this was just the start.

This action also took time for him to program. "Transformers Deployed." Robertson knew he was going to be busy since they had so many of them, and he was being proven right.

Now it was time for the next thing on their list. "Navigation, plot a course that will take us around the planet at different orbits. Lower us down into this planet's debris field. Raise shields!" Rick was going to push everything that was in orbit out of its orbit using his ship.

"Course plotted. …Estimate that it will take us two weeks and two days to complete all orbits to clear all debris." Lieutenant Kimbalwyke reported.

"Shields raised," Ensign Zitek said.

"Take us down and let's get started." They were assigned here for four years and Rick was just starting to think that it was going to take all four years, if not longer.

Rick watched his globe and then looked through it to see the actual view.

"Our shields are being hit, Commodore," Ensign Zitek reported. "No loss in strength detected." So far all of it was little more than normal space dust that was everywhere. Even inside a wormhole. She wasn't even sure why the shields were up. Their hull could have handled this.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The presence of their ship did raise alarms in several places on the planet, though.

"Admiral, the object is doing something. It looks like it's ejecting objects that are headed down to the planet," Ensign Jensen called out, getting the admiral's attention.

"Can you estimate locations of impact?" Admiral Isenholt assumed they were being fired upon.

"There are thousands of objects, Admiral. They seemed to be guided. A few are simply being dropped while the vast majority appear to be maneuvering to reach various areas of the planet." They were all over the place.

Isenholt watched the screen that was artificially displaying what his radar was seeing. "Isolate this group here. Where are they going?" They looked like they were headed for the United States.

"Analyzing." Jensen needed time and more information.

"Sir, I have some headed for the 90th Missile Wing at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. Another group is headed for the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base. More are headed for the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base. And another for the 625 Strategic Operations Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base." Jensen was cool on the outside but his insides were in complete turmoil.

"It's a goddamn first strike!" The target was targeting their ICBMs. It was the only explanation. "Get me the President!" They needed to strike back.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The same scene was being played out in Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, and India. North Korea never even saw them coming.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Mr. President. We're tracking multiple objects that are directed at all of our fixed ICBM sites. The target in orbit is firing on us." Admiral Isenholt's only job was to inform. It was up to others to decide how to respond. Though he knew what he wanted to do and would deploy if so ordered.

"All of them!?" How could they have spotted all of them?

"Sir, they're launching a second wave at this moment. It will take some time to get a direction for these. The first wave appear to be directional. They're not just dropping objects directly from orbit. I would guess programmed missiles, Mr. President." It was his best educated guess.

They both knew they had nothing that would prevent them from striking their targets. Intercepting missiles like other ICBMs was just in the planning phase. It was either they survived the strike or he launched them. A use them or lose them scenario.

"I'll order a strike on the target in orbit. They've attacked us, so we will retaliate. Thank you, Isenholt." Bracken ended the call and went to open his safe. He needed the numbers that were listed there.

Moments later, "Admiral Smithson, I want you to deploy the experimental ICBM interceptor with the laser mounted in the nose. I want that ship destroyed. It's attacking our military targets."

"Mr. President, the YAL-1 is just experimental." He knew that any spaceship that could reach them wasn't going to be scared of their little laser mounted in the nose of a plane.

"DO AS YOU'RE GODDAMN ORDERED! OR I'LL HAVE YOU REPLACED AND HAVE HIM DO IT. DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME, ADMIRAL? OR SHOULD I SAY ENSIGN?" Bracken wasn't going to put up with this shit. He was the goddamn president. People did as they were fucking told.

Admiral Smithson had been on the receiving end of one of his foul-mouthed tantrums before. He also knew that Bracken would do all he could to see that he was reduced in rank and possibly dishonorably discharged to boot.

"Yes, Mr. President. I'll give the order. It will likely take an hour to find and deploy the crew and get it in the air," Smithson warned; it wasn't just that easy.

"JUST FUCKING DO IT! YOU HAVE THIRTY MINUTES OR I'LL HAVE YOU RELIEVED OF YOUR COMMAND! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" Bracken slammed the phone down. "I'm surrounded by incompetent assholes. Fucking Clinton! I'm forever cleaning up his goddamn messes." He had spent all his time in office so far undoing all that Clinton had done. "That fucking asshole was going to ruin this country." He was going to make America great again if it killed him.

One of his aids walked into his office. "What the fuck do you want?" Bracken was in a bad mood now and he was going to take it out on this asshole.

"Sir, a federal judge has denied your request to close our borders to all Muslims." He placed the report on his desk and really, really wanted out of the president's office.

" **WHAT!** "Bracken wasn't going to take anymore of this shit. " **WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS? I'M THE GODDAMN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. HE WORKS FOR ME!** "Bracken did at least pick it up and read it. " **GODDAMN CLINTON APPOINTEE. I SHOULD JUST ORDER THE LOT OF THEM REMOVED FROM OFFICE!** "He didn't know why he had allowed himself to be talked out of doing just that.

Then his phone rang again. " **WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT!?** "he day was going from bad to worse.

"Mr. President, we're monitoring a third wave of objects entering the atmosphere. Like the others, these appear to be headed all over the planet. Russia, China, the Middle East," Admiral Smithson informed him. He snapped his head away from the sound of the phone being slammed down on Bracken's end. "Jerk, why did America vote for him in the first place?" He was going to get them all killed. However, Smithson did have enough sense to say that so softly that no one heard him.

" **RUSSIA!** "Bracken picked the phone back up again. "Get me Putin. I don't care what he's doing. We need to talk."

Bracken would have steam coming out his ears now if it was physically possible. " **GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE!** "The asshole with the news on his order was still standing there. It gave him a touch of pride that the little jackass ran like a frightened rabbit.

Then his phone rang. Finally a friendly voice to talk to. "Putin?"

"No, Mr. President, this is Admiral Smithson. The target has moved to a lower orbit. It's hitting satellites and other objects and forcing them out of their orbits. Some are small enough that they'll burn up harmlessly. However, there are a lot of them that will not. They'll impact the planet in any number of locations. If they keep this up, over one hundred seventy million objects will lose their orbits. Of which twenty-nine thousand are too large to burn up in descent."

" **SHOOT THE GODDAMN THING DOWN! DO IT FUCKING RIGHT NOW OR YOUR FIRED!** "Bracken slammed the phone down. What the hell else could happen?

Then in walked yet a different aid. " **GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE!** "he screamed and watched him scurry away like a frightened rat. Which he was, as a matter of fact.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"First wave of transformers are reaching their targets," Lieutenant Robertson reported.

If anyone had been inside the silos they would have seen a crystalline-looking spider scurrying all over the missile, leaving behind dust that fell to the floor. When it was done about an hour later, all that was left was solid rocket fuel, lots of powder, and a small box containing the nuclear material.

Then each of them just sat there and waited for the next order.

In Russia all that was left was liquid rocket fuel, lots of powder, and a small box containing the nuclear fuel.

It was happening all over the planet and only a handful ever saw a thing.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"The second wave of transformers is reaching their targets," Robertson said.

Once again a spider scurried all over the mobile launcher that it had found. It ignored the men who ran away and did its job. It also ignored the one or two that actually fired a small solid projectile at it and occasionally hit it.

When it was done all that was left of the entire device was a pile of dust and a small box that contained the nuclear material. It also left the men that were manning it stranded in the middle of nowhere without any communication, or food, or water since all of it had been left inside the cab.

"What the hell is that thing?" They watched it just sit there on top of the box surrounded by what used to be their MGM-134A Midgetman.

This was repeated in Russia except it was a RT-2PM Topol in their case.

For the most part it was happening so fast that virtually no one was able to communicate with their base about what was happening. It was all going come as a surprise later.

"Our third wave is now reaching their targets, Commodore," Robertson advised.

In this case the transformers followed the already excavated tunnels to the very bottom where they started to eat away at the rock causing a cave in. They simply moved up to the next level and repeated. They did this over and over until they were up top surrounded by miners – if they managed to escape in time – and sat there waiting for their next order.

"Our fourth wave is starting to reach their targets," Robertson reported.

In this case artillery pieces that either had a nuclear tipped warhead or had them nearby found themselves being eaten by crystalline spiders. However there were a far larger number of military personnel that did what they could to prevent the spiders from destroying everything.

None of what they did even slowed them down. In the end they all stood there and watched them just sit there surrounded by dust with the tiny little boxes that held the nuclear material.

The following waves were watched by hundreds if not thousands as ship after ship and submarine after submarine all over the planet were reduced to dust with little tiny boxes containing nuclear material inside the dust with a spider sitting on top of it all or simply floating where a ship used to be.

In each case the ship's personnel were now swimming for life rafts or for shore.

The instances were starting to pile up in various command areas. Military hardware was being turned into dust right in front of their eyes and all that was left was either a single or multiple crystalline spiders that just sat there.

It was hours later and Rick and Kate were about to leave the Bridge and hand it over to the night crew.

"All targets destroyed, Commodore," the night crew's Weapons officer announced with great satisfaction.

Rick looked at the officer who was now seated in the commanding officer's chair. "Have the already deployed transformers moved to their next targets. We need to start destruction of all of their military hardware. Since this planet has so much of it, this part's going to take some time.

"Deploy new transformers as you see fit. Alert me if anything happens. We've already shot down a plane that fired a laser at us. It was harmless but it was a military weapon so it was destroyed. They'll likely try something else. Simply destroy it and keep removing the space junk."

"Understood, Commodore," she replied. It sounded simple enough.


	7. Chapter 7

**Empire**

 **Chapter 7**

Kate sat on the sofa while her husband was sitting on the floor playing a game with Alexis. It was one of those moments that only confirmed her decision to marry him. He was an amazing man. Still her mind was on what happened today.

"What do you think they'll do?" she asked him when it wasn't his turn.

"Hmm?" She'd caught him off guard. "OH! What can they do? The transformers are immune to any of their conventional weapons. If they do fire on one it'll revert to its basic programming. It'll attack the person that fired, destroy their weapon, then jump to any other weapon in the area and destroy that weapon." Rick turned his attention back to the game.

He arched an eyebrow, staring at the gameboard. He glanced at his daughter. "Can you **do** that?" Alexis had moved a piece and it wasn't in his favor. Alexis just smiled at him. "I think I'm being played over here," he complained to his wife.

Kate's mind was still focused on Earth. "I meant to us. The fact that they have all that junk in space tells me that they can get things into orbit." And leave a great deal of it behind it looked like.

"What's bothering you tonight?" Rick didn't see anything this planet could do as a potential threat to their ship. "Do you know something I don't?"

"I…" Kate had wanted a baby yet it was now that she started to worry about her choices. She decided to talk about it. "What if I have twins? It **is** possible."

Rick thought so. Her talking about Earth was just a screen for her fears. "What do you think?" He turned his attention to Alexis. "Do you want to share your room with two little brothers?"

Alexis made a face of disgust that struck Kate right in her heart. "No."

Rick was unfazed about Alexis's comment. "How about two baby sisters just like you?" Was it the fact that they were boys?

Alexis sat there, considering it. To her way of thinking her room was huge, but she had a lot of stuff. What would happen to all of it if she shared her room? It was off-putting enough that she shook her head.

"What if we put your baby sisters in a different room?" Rick tried that to try and find out what her problem was.

Alexis thought about it and decided that that wouldn't be so bad. Still she wasn't sure just what she thought about having a baby anything. So she shrugged and was noncommittal.

That had Kate off the sofa and on the floor to sit next to her and pull her into her lap. "Do you not like babies?" Alexis had never shown a dislike for babies before. She'd even searched them out in the past so that she could see them.

Kate replayed her words and decided that was too difficult a question. "Do you like babies?" It was simpler for her. Alexis nodded.

Kate had at least one victory. "Are you willing to share your dad and me with a new baby? It doesn't mean we don't love or will ever stop loving you."

However, Alexis had a question. "Why?"

That had Kate looking at Rick. Of all the questions for her to ask she had to ask that one.

"Because Mommy and I have a lot of unused love. So we thought maybe we could give it to a baby sister or baby brother." Rick decided to question her. "Don't you have a lot of love inside your heart?"

Alexis knew her heart was filled with love. But was it so full that she had extra? She'd never thought about that. She either loved someone or something or she didn't. Before she could say anything, her mommy spoke. "Do you love me more than you love Daddy? Or do you love both of us?" Kate found the question escaping her lips before she could think about it. Once it was out she cringed at the implications.

Alexis looked at her and then at her dad. "Love." It was simple to her.

"You used to be a baby. We loved you instantly. All babies deserve to be loved. Hate is a very bad thing, sweetheart." Kate didn't want her baby girl to hate anyone or anything.

"Except maybe the Ortag," Rick commented and got eye daggers from his wife. "Just saying."

He decided this talk had been serious enough. "Dinner. Maybe your friend Paige will be there." He got up, helped his daughter up, and then his wife. "Let's get you washed, pumpkin, and then we can go eat. Maybe you'll see a baby or two. Babies are made to be loved." He hurried her off to her bathroom.

Kate loved her husband all over again. Still she worried about what Alexis was thinking. She hoped she was overthinking the problem, but she worried that she wasn't.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"He's going to go ballistic," Admiral Kerr told Admiral Johnson as they walked inside the White House headed for a meeting they had requested with the president.

"When does he not?" Johnson countered. "Life was so much simpler when we had a real Cold War. Now I'm not sure who's an enemy and who's an ally any longer." He never thought he would wish for the old days.

"Allies!" Kerr made it sound like a joke. "All of Europe hates us. Mexico hates us. Canada hates us. China hates us. The only country that doesn't hate us is Russia and they're actively at war with us. It's just a silent, well-hidden war." It was an information war and a computer hacking war – a very different kind of war.

"Wait here," they were told while she buzzed him to inform the president that there were two admirals there to see him.

"You can go in. …Good luck." He knew the president was in full bloom today. No one was escaping his wrath today.

They barely made it past the door. "Tell me that ship has been destroyed." He had ordered it so it should have happened.

Admiral Kerr tried to explain. "Sir…"

Bracken leapt up from his chair. " **ANSWER ME!** "

Admirals Johnson and Kerr were there to deliver information and did their best to ignore his outburst. After all he was known to be volatile. Kerr continued, "We launched an F-15 and fired an ASM-135 ASAT at the target. The missile was intercepted and destroyed. Then our F-15 was destroyed."

" **WHAT!** " He had ordered the ship destroyed. He couldn't believe that they hadn't done as they were ordered. "We're the strongest military on the planet. And you idiots can't shoot down one little ship?" He truly couldn't believe it.

Johnson tried to defend their actions. "Mr. President, based on radar returns we believe that the ship is roughly six miles long by three or more miles wide. One missile was ever only going to scratch it."

"One missile. YOU FIRED JUST ONE FUCKING MISSILE! HOW INCOMPETENT ARE YOU TWO? ONE FUCKING MISSILE!" He was all set to fire these two idiots.

Instead he moved over to his desk and picked up the phone. "Get me the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," he demanded. "I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHERE HE IS. GET HIM ON THE GODDAMN PHONE!" Bracken slammed the phone down.

"Get the fuck out of my sight." He waved dismissively at the two admirals.

"Sir, we have additional information." They needed to inform him even if they knew what the result would be. Besides they were silently hoping for it.

Bracken stood there and waited.

"We have information that a number of our fixed ICBM sites in Wyoming and other locations have been destroyed," Admiral Kerr said. "Technically only the missile itself while sitting in its silo has been destroyed. The rest of the site is undamaged." Neither of them had any idea how that had happened.

Bracken was literally too shocked at this to scream at them. He was surrounded by complete fools and now he had proof.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The same scene was being played out in Russia as well. "This leaves us open to a first strike by the Americans. How did this happen?" Putin wanted answers. Yes, he was playing games with the Americans. Yes, they found out about some of it. He simply denied all of it and that fool of a president fell for it. This, however, was something entirely different.

"As difficult as it is to be believed, it appears that a single large spider that looks to be made out of one or more exotic gems has been found sitting on what is left of some of the missiles."

Putin had to think about that. It didn't sound like something the Americans had developed. They weren't that advanced. At least not yet. "Is it possible that the ship that's in orbit and destroying all our satellites is the cause?"

Before they could answer, he asked, "A better question is are they acting on orders from the Americans?" That sounded like the worst case scenario to him.

"Unlikely, sir. Everything in orbit appears to be being forced into the atmosphere. Most of it is small and will burn up. But a lot of it's too large to burn up. All of that will strike the planet in numerous locations. Since the planet is mostly water, the majority will land there." They all knew that if it hit land it could be serious.

Putin's eyes briefly had a distant look. "Ask the engineers again what will happen to the nuclear powered satellites when they strike the planet." His memory told him that they would split open and deploy the nuclear materials into the atmosphere. Mini Chernobyls all over the place.

He decided he would simply deny that it was a Russian anything and blame it on other countries or simply ignore their threats. The West was toothless. President Bracken was all mouth.

"Find out what's going on. I will deal with the Americans and this ship from space." Then Putin stopped them. "And find out what actions the Americans have made against this ship, if any."

He needed information and time to think. Russia would come out of this victorious. There was nothing else that could happen.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was actually amazed at the speed of the transformers. They really did work fast. It only been a few days.

"All targets accounted for, Commodore," Robertson reported. He was looking at a lot of mostly idle transformers.

It was such a shock that it had him out of his command chair and walking over to his wife. "This is very unexpected. Do we attack the huge number of combat bases next?" This planet was overflowing with weapons and they hadn't even gotten to the ones the civilians were sure to have.

"That or the combat that's taking place in what they call the Middle East." Kate was onboard with whatever he decided.

Rick took a deep breath in and let it out. He had made a decision. "Order the transformers that are already on the planet to spread out from their present location and destroy any weapon they come across." He was betting that would keep the vast number of countries that this planet was broken up into very busy.

He actually walked over to the weapons station. "We have scans of every military base on the planet." Rick still couldn't believe just how many of them there were on this planet. Some were dedicated to land units. Others to working on water and still others were dedicated to air combat.

"Dispatch ten thousand transformers to the largest of them. Reduce that number by two thousand for each base that is smaller than the largest ones. Do not reduce the number below two thousand no matter how big or small the base is." Rick headed back to his chair and waited.

Rick was informed when each group was launched and he watched them all on the globe as they descended toward the planet.

"Commodore, I have twenty-four high performance planes headed into high upper atmosphere. They're coming at us from four different directions. Based on the configuration it would appear that they are identical to the one that fired a missile at us earlier," Ensign Zitek suddenly announced.

"Each one's armed with a missile that has nuclear material at the tip, Sir."

One was a mere nuisance. Twenty-four were another matter entirely. Rick looked at his screens and noted that they were still doing orbits and forcing the vast amount of junk into the planets atmosphere. This meant that their shields were still up. It also meant that those missiles could do nothing to them. Still it was better to be safe than sorry. Rick pressed a panel.

"General Quarters, General Quarters, this is not a drill." No sooner than Rick had said that then the lighting went to a very soft blue and everyone's screens were now what mostly lit up the bridge.

"Secure the Bridge." Rick was betting the Marine was already doing it, but he needed to make sure.

"I want a scan for each location that those aircraft came from," Rick ordered. "Weapons, once that scan's complete I want you to divide up our main forward guns and fire one beam at each location." Rick knew it wouldn't destroy the entire base…most likely. It would send a message, though. One that they couldn't miss.

Kate turned to look at her husband with a silent question. These shots were probably going to kill a large number of people. She turned back around and did her job when she saw the look on his face. She really wished there was another way. But this planet was attacking a ship of the Empire and a response was mandated. But she quietly questioned why he didn't just deploy more transformers. They still had several times what they'd already deployed.

"Scans are complete. Transferring locations to weapons," Zitek reported

"Prepare to launch interceptors." Rick could see the aircraft getting closer and closer as the continued to gain altitude.

"Main weapons locked. We have targets for each location," Robertson said.

"Fire." Rick didn't hesitate. "Fire interceptors when ready." It was time to eliminate the tiny threat to his ship.

The main beam weapons that came streaking down from space could be seen from miles around. For those people, buildings, and equipment on the ground, they watched as a large beam struck and vaporized everything it touched. Then they watched it circle around before burning itself out and vanishing.

What it left behind was a whole lot of nothing. Everything it touched was just…gone. It even left a large and deep trench in the concrete showing its pattern.

"Firing interceptors," Robertson announced.

Rick stared at his globe and watched his interceptors hit each aircraft as they vanished from view.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The base's F-15s each had their own hanger that were said to be bombproof. They were all off to one side of a pair of runways that were side by side.

The base's command building was watching their fighters flying up and up to engage the ship that was attacking their country. It had everyone on the base pissed off. Every soul on the base was willing their fighters to go up and kick some ass.

The people in this building barely had a fraction of a second to see a brilliant beam vaporizing the building they were in, leaving nothing behind.

However, there were people scattered all over the base. Some were far enough out on the edge of the base as they saw a beam that was so bright it had them shielding their eyes from it. They heard things exploding and being blasted everywhere. What they didn't know was that all those explosions were on the fringe of the beam. What the beam touched simply vanished.

When the light disappeared they looked out and saw that their base had been gutted. Buildings, maintenance hangers, even fighters in their hardened shelters were just gone.

The people in those buildings that were monitoring the progress of their fighters never saw their fighters vanish.

Kadena Air Force Base, home of the 44th Fighter Squadron – the Vampires – was all but gutted. The only thing that remained was about half of their squadron and the two runways. Over half of the base's personnel would never be seen again.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"All targets destroyed, Commodore," Robertson asserted.

Rick had watched most of it on his globe. "Maintain all transformer targets. Including those same bases." They needed to remove all of its fighting capabilities. That included all of the ammunition stores that were kept at those bases. That also included all of the weapons that the base's personnel had access to.

The commodore studied his globe as he watched the large wave of transformers reaching their targets. It was going to take days to eliminate each and every base that had been targeted worldwide.

They still had hundreds of thousands of transformers in reserve for later. Rick knew they were going to need them if they were to eliminate all weapons on this planet, no matter their location.

He continued to watch and wait for anything that needed his attention. He didn't miss that his wife was still continuing to respond to items that needed attention in the ship. It was a brand new ship and he was starting to wonder if it shouldn't have gone through more testing. So many things needed to be attended to.

"Secure from General Quarters. …Release the Bridge door." Everything looked safe and normal to him.

An hour later the night crew began to enter. Rick looked up and began to bring the officer on watch up to speed. "The place called United States made a more concerted effort at attacking us. They were unsuccessful, naturally. I don't think they'll try that again. But watch out for Russia, they have yet to try anything. Maintain the orbit pattern. We still need to clean this planet of orbiting debris.

"Alert me when you reach the largest piece. I haven't decided what to do with it yet."

"Yes, Commodore." She sat down in the command chair and started to orient herself with what was happening.

Rick met Kate in front of their door. "I'll go get Alexis." Rick headed to the transit pod.

"Husband…, was striking their bases with our main weapons necessary?" They didn't have to kill that many people.

"They attacked a ship of the Empire, Kate. Do you want the Bridge crew thinking I'm a coward?" Why was she even questioning him?

"No, Husband." Kate knew he couldn't stand back and do nothing. "I'll wash and get dressed for dinner. I'll even let you decide, _provided_ our daughter approves of your choice." She grinned at him and entered their room.

"We're the adults and Alexis runs our lives." He shook his head and stepped into the transit pod to go get the master of their family. "What's going to happen when we add more?"

He was smiling; he wouldn't have it any other way. His life was perfect just as it was.


	8. Chapter 8

**Empire - 8**

 _It has been two weeks since we last saw our two heroes_

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"I wouldn't go in there," Jason warned the general who had just arrived. Jason was a steadfast supporter of Bracken and refused to leave even though Bracken had been completely impossible the last month or so. Regardless, the young man was behind Bracken one hundred percent or more if that was possible.

"I didn't ask you." As far as General Onorati was concerned the kid at the desk was an ass-kisser. Or maybe worse, an ass-licker. His face couldn't smell more like Bracken's ass if he tried.

The general gave the door a quick knock and entered. He found Bracken all alone in the Oval Office. He wasn't reading anything. Not that he read any of the daily security updates that everyone made and sent to him to read. He ignored everything and did as he pleased. No one on the planet was smarter than he was.

"Mr. President." He had a case full of top secret memos that were for his eyes only.

"CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY!?" Bracken snarled. Didn't he know that being the President of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, was hard and tiring work?

"Yes, Mr. President. However, this can't wait." He unlocked the cuff from his wrist, set the metal courier case down, and opened it. "This is the report of our preliminary losses to date." He placed the file on his desk; Bracken didn't even look at it, let alone pick it up and read it.

"This is our preliminary report on the casualties." He placed that file on his desk on top of the first one.

"This is what we know about where all the debris that is, or was, in orbit that has landed so far." He placed that file on top of the others.

Onorati then delivered the bad news. "There isn't a military base from Fort Bragg, which is, or was, our largest base to the Ammunition Depot Indian Island, in Port Hadlock, Washington, which is, or was, our smallest that hasn't been hit.

"Wright-Patterson AFB has been totally wiped out. Everything military, including everything that was stored below ground, has been lost. Every fighter plane is gone, though the hangers they were in are still partially intact. The same can be said for Area 51. …The only strange thing is that for the most part, only the personnel that were in those buildings have been killed or injured." They were being wiped out, or at least their war material was and they couldn't seem to stop them. And losing everything they had at those two bases had now deprived them of almost every alien artifact that they had possession of. Bracken might not care, but he and several others did.

What was worse, given the number of lives lost so far, was the idea that those losses were only collateral damage. Their military personnel, it seemed, had not actually been targeted. It was just horribly bad luck that those people died because the buildings they were in at the time were destroyed.

"The only operational bases that we still have are the ones in foreign countries. Though the last word we had was that they, too, were under attack."

Bracken was ready to explode. All this worthless asshole had was bad news. "So what's the good news?"

"All of our operational units in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far not been affected. Our plans are still operational in that area.

"I'm not privy to what the CIA or NSA or various intelligence agencies have learned. However, we've been monitoring the situation and have learned that the same crystal spiders that have done this to our units, have also landed all over the planet. It's highly likely that other countries are suffering the same losses." Onorati had no concrete information on this, but it was logical to assume so.

"Russia, China?" Bracken questioned.

"Yes, Mr. President, most definitely." He just didn't know how bad. But if it was as bad as them, they were all in trouble.

"Get out," Bracken ordered and looked down at the papers on his desk. "ARE YOU FUCKING HARD OF HEARING AS WELL AS INCOMPETENT? I FUCKING TOLD YOU TO GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE!" Bracken stared him down then watched him turn and walk to the door. It only pissed him off even more when the asshole simply walked with his head held high. The son of a bitch thought he was better than him.

Bracken picked up the files then threw them across his desk to land on the floor. He never read anything he was given. He had little to no trust in any of the people that gave him anything. His so-called intelligence people lacked anything to do with Intelligence.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Husband…are you asleep?" Kate squeezed his arm lightly to get his attention.

"Yes," Rick mumbled, keeping his eyes closed.

She ignored his reply, since by actually answering her told her that he was indeed awake. "I'm hungry." She was having her first craving.

"You ate dinner," Rick commented, remembering that she'd stuffed her face with what she had ordered.

"Baby?" Kate purred into his ear. "The baby is hungry." Technically she didn't as yet know if it was just one baby or more. Though her doctor appointment to find out just that was coming up soon.

Rick groaned but tiredly swung his legs out of bed and sat up. "What's the baby hungry for?" Finding what she wanted at this hour might or might not be difficult.

That had Kate thinking about it. She wanted something but trying to understand just what that was was a little elusive. "Something salty…with hot sauce. Lots and lots of hot sauce."

Rick turned to look at her like she'd lost her mind. "I may be sleeping on the sofa tonight." With all that hot sauce in her he was sure their bedroom was going to be unlivable.

"Husband!" Kate was sure she had just been insulted.

"Salty and hot sauce. Got it." Rick yawned then got up and headed for the closet to find something to wear since going naked was right out.

"Salty and hot sauce, salty and hot sauce," Rick repeated to himself as he walked to their bedroom door. Mostly because he was still mostly asleep.

He had just started to shut their bedroom door when Kate added to her list. "AND ICE CREAM. THE BABY WANTS ICE CREAM!"

Rick was in the transit pod. "Salty, hot sauce. …And ice cream?" He looked up toward their room. He was still shaking his head as he got out of the transit pod.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick had two bags in his hands when he entered their quarters only to see Alexis at her bedroom door. "What are you doing up?" She should be in bed asleep.

Alexis simply shrugged. "What's that?" He had bags which meant he had gone out shopping without her.

"Mommy said she was hungry. So I got her crackers and hot sauce," he replied, leaving out the ice cream intentionally, knowing that if he told her she would want to stay up and have some of it.

She made a disgusted face. "YUK!"

"Go back to bed, pumpkin." Rick watched her start to close her bedroom door.

"YUK!" Alexis was sure her dreams were going to be filled with crackers and hot sauce.

Rick shut their bedroom door to find Kate sitting on their bed waiting for him. "Crackers, very salty. Hot sauce." He showed her the bottle filled with Yuzu Kosho hot sauce. "And hot sauce." He showed her another bottle – Koregusu – that was made by someone else. "And ice cream. Strawberry, your favorite."

Kate beamed and leaned out to kiss him quickly. "Thank you."

Rick was sure his stomach was roiling and in full blown revolt as he watched her take out a cracker, douse it with hot sauce, then pop it in her mouth and swallow. Only to do it again, and again, and again.

He rolled over so he didn't have to see it. He did, though, hear her a little later moaning in pleasure. He didn't want to know why.

Kate was satisfied and put her leftovers on the side table. "Thank you, Husband." She began to lean over to kiss him.

"Don't come anywhere near me with that mouth," Rick warned which stopped Kate in mid-lean.

She pouted at him. "Husband!" It was just a simple little kiss.

Rick reaffirmed what he'd said. "No way, no how." He had no idea how she wasn't going to be up all night with heartburn. Though he did know that if she did, so would he.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

He didn't understand how, but Kate was up a little early and was getting Alexis ready for school. She had even volunteered to take her to school before showing up on the Bridge.

"There, you're pretty as ever." Kate leaned down to give her daughter a quick kiss, only to have her turn her head. Her jaw dropped in surprise. "Alexis!?" She'd never refused a kiss before.

"Stinky." Her mother's breath was terrible.

Kate blew into her hand and then sniffed. But she didn't smell anything. Still…

"I'll suck on a breath mint, will that do?" Alexis wasn't leaving without a kiss.

She searched for one, found it, popped it in her mouth, and went back to her daughter. "We need to go, sweetheart, or you and I are going to be late.

Kate held off giving her a goodbye kiss until they had reached the school. It was there that Alexis accepted her kiss. "Enjoy first grade." Kate feared that her daughter, while already small for her age, was going to be even smaller next to the other children.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick watched his wife take her position and gave her a moment to find out what happened last night and start handling the morning's events.

"Report on progress of our transformers." Rick wanted to hear an update, not read the update.

"All of our initial targets have been completed. The military base targets are completed to…" Robertson needed to work out the latest update himself. "Seventy-six percent are complete, Commodore. Those seventy-six percent are spreading out in a circular pattern as ordered."

"Seventy-six percent?" It seemed a little low to him. He was thinking they should be in the nineties by now.

"If I may, Commodore?" Robertson needed to show him something. At Rick's nod, he took over the globe so that he could display one of the bases in question.

He began his explanation. "This is one of the larger military bases. This one happens to be in what is called the United States.

"In addition to having military units sitting in storage waiting to be used there are several in what is a maintenance yard undergoing either upgrades or regular maintenance. But it's this area that's slowing down the transformers." Robertson changed the display to something else.

What Rick and the others saw was a mound of dirt with many more around it. Maybe around sixty or so. "Each of these is a hardened shelter that stores various weapons. Every one is covered over by local dirt for reasons that escape me." He had no idea why they would do that. It wasn't any kind of camouflage since there were roads that led right to them.

"They have to spread out and go through each door to reach the weapons. Then there are these main buildings. Each one in and of itself contain a number of weapons. Actually the entire base is littered with weapons.

"If I add to this that some of the bases are also, what the locals call naval bases, then the transformers need to destroy those as well. It's simply taking a little longer than first anticipated. But they should all be complete within another 48 hours, Commodore." Robertson changed the globe back to the way it had been.

Rick took it all in and was yet again amazed by the number of weapons this planet had. Since they had no space flight it meant all of these weapons were meant to be used against people on their own planet.

"This is one screwed up planet." Rick said it softly, though everyone heard him and most started nodding.

They had to get rid of all the weapons before they could even start to think about the next phase.

"Navigation, what's our progress on the space junk?" He had read that report as well but wanted to be told.

"We are sixty-two percent complete with all of our orbits. One of our orbits is going to come up on the largest item they have in space, Commodore," Kimbalwyke responded.

That had him tracing their orbits until he found it. It was easily the largest piece in orbit. It looked like it was actually assembled in space, which for this planet was amazing. There were a number of round metal cylinders that looked to be interconnected. Far to the outside where a number or large flat panels. Eight to either side. They were also quite long.

Rick spotted something. "Is that a ship…maybe?" He zoomed in on it. It had no wings so it wasn't meant for flight inside the planet's atmosphere. Actually it looked a little odd to him. There was a round pod that was attached to a cylinder. Off of that cylinder were a pair of flat panels reaching out into space.

He zoomed out just a touch. "There are two of them. Scan them for weapons." Could they actually have a space ship that had weapons? If they did why hadn't they used them before now?

"Scan complete," Ensign Zitek reported. "No weapons detected. It's crew complement is rather small. Three or four at most…each."

"Transportation to and from it, perhaps. Scan for life signs." The entire thing had to go, naturally, but he knew what his wife would say if he simply pushed it into the planet's atmosphere and let it partially burn up before what was left hit the planet. Especially if the thing was manned.

"Scans show it presently contains six people, Commodore."

In the overall scheme of things, killing six people was nothing. He certainly had no qualms about doing it. However, he also didn't want to be sleeping on the sofa for a week.

"Weapons, lock an interceptor on the base of one of those panels." He was hoping it would simply blow the panel off and let it burn up on reentry.

"Communications, adjust a frequency and contact them. Maybe we can talk them into abandoning it before I destroy it." Since Kate had her back to him he missed seeing her smile.

"I have someone, Commodore," Petty Officer Boze announced.

Rick pressed a panel. "I am Commodore Castle. You have thirty minutes to abandon your station before I destroy it. This is your one and only warning." Rick closed communications.

 _There,_ he thought. _At least_ _my_ _wife w_ _ill_ _be happy._ Besides, if he was sleeping on the sofa because she was mad at him, who was going to go out and find what she wanted for a bedtime snack?

Naturally the answer he came up with was him. She would get up, wake him, and inform him that the baby wanted something. He would groan and moan because he was sleeping on the sofa, but he would get up and go get it. Whatever it was.

The things he would do for love.

They were almost upon it and nothing had really changed. "Weapons, fire the interceptor. Maybe losing a piece of their pathetic little station will get them moving."

"Target locked, firing interceptor," Robertson confirmed.

Rick zoomed in using the globe and watched as the interceptor struck its target. The result was a little more than he'd planned for. The single panel and the rod that connected it to the station blew off all right. But it also blew a second panel off of the station. He had failed to notice that two panels were attached to a single rod.

Then he watched as more junk was ejected out into space. In a few short minutes that entire area started to fall apart. "More fragile than I thought." He had just wanted to give them a warning shot. But that one little interceptor looked to be creating secondary explosions down the entire length of the station.

"Commodore, scans indicate that both of the space ships have left the station. Trajectory suggests a soft descent down to the planet," Zitek reported.

Well, at least he had gotten them off the station. "Maintain course, push that piece of junk down into the atmosphere." He knew it, like some of the other pieces, wouldn't completely burn up. Some of it would strike the planet. And since most of this planet was water, he didn't concern himself with where any of it landed.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They were a few hours from having the night shift take over.

"Commodore, I'm getting a communication on a low band. I believe it's directed at us." The words they were using suggested that.

"Ignore them, we'll speak to the people of this planet in due time. Though that won't happen until we've destroyed each and every weapon we can find. That will also include all of their manufacturing ability." It wasn't enough to just destroy all of the planet's weapons; they had to ensure they couldn't easily make new ones.

"Yes, Commodore." His communications officer listened to them call, and call, and call. He eventually simply closed that frequency and ignored it.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick arrived back at their quarters with Alexis, to find Kate in one of her more soft and sexy dresses. Curious, he raised an eyebrow.

"Go change into something nice, my Husband, while I get Alexis dressed." Kate took their daughter to her room to find her something equally nice to wear.

Rick was perplexed but he was dressed in a casual suit when Kate and Alexis came out to join him. He hadn't seen both of them look that nice in a long time and side by side, even.

"What's the occasion?" He had racked his brain while changing and had come up with nothing.

"We're celebrating, my Husband. The entire ship will be taking part." Not all at the same time naturally, but everyone would get a chance.

"Celebrating what?" He still couldn't think of a thing.

"The day my planet was accepted into the Empire. It was the first event that allowed me the chance to meet you," Kate explained. "I love you, my Husband." She couldn't see her life without him ever being in it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.

Alexis watched for a moment. "EWW!" And turned away, though she was smiling. Her parents still loved each other and that meant the world to her.

But then she was soon being kissed over and over by both of them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Empire**

 **Chapter 9**

One of the aids to the Governor of California walked into his office and handed over a small stack of paper. "Sir, I have some new data for you to read."

"A synopsis, if you please." The entire state was going to hell in a handbasket, or so it seemed. Even worse was the fact that their own president didn't give damn. The governor's countless calls had gained him nothing. And worse still was the fact that what little media remained had found out about his calls along with the response that he had gotten from the president. It could all be boiled down to one simple fact. The governor was from one political party and the president was another.

Added to that was the fact that Bracken lost in California by a wide margin. There was only one state in the entire country that hated Bracken more than California and that was the Great State of Massachusetts. However, it was about the only thing the two states had in common.

"Sir, the Norrbom, Adobe, Partrick, Pressley, and Oakmont fires have now combined into a single enormous fire. There are presently twenty-two fatalities, eleven injured, just short of six thousand structures destroyed." He listened to the governor moan. Unfortunately he wasn't done yet. "Also the Nuns fire is threatening to merge with the Redwood Valley fire as well as the Mendocino Complex fires. Those fires combined have caused nineteen fatalities, forty-three injured and just short of six hundred structures destroyed."

It felt like half the state was on fire, though he knew that was an exaggeration. "Is there any good news?" He could use some about now.

"I'm sorry, but no, sir. Unless the Hillside fire is contained we could possibly lose an entire town. All two hundred twenty thousand residents have been ordered to evacuate. Naturally not everyone will leave. Loss of life is estimated to be over two hundred with injuries at twice that number. With structures destroyed well into the thousands." It had been bad and was beginning to look worse.

"Thanks, I'll start making phone calls and see what help I can get." He'd already called in every favor he thought he had. He was getting ready to call out the entire California National Guard. Problem was none of them were trained fire fighters. They might be helpful, but the question was how much.

Governor Tyzes watched him leave; he huffed a breath and picked up today's paper.

He already knew that the fires had all been started by debris from space hitting tinder dry areas and sparking fires. The papers, news, Twitter, Facebook, and literally every other outlet was full of a ship in orbit that was attacking them.

Bracken had managed to hide the fact that the nation no longer had any ICBMs either on land or at sea. What he hadn't managed to hide was the damage being done to the countless military bases all over the country. A lot of those bases, like the main naval base in Norfolk, were easily viewed by a large number of people. Plus it was hard to hide the smoke from all the fires emanating from each base.

Word was slowly starting to spread that it was spiders that were doing all the damage. Naturally a lot of people didn't believe those stories. Especially those loyal to Bracken. It was the media that was trying to discredit him so they chose not to believe.

Sighing, he scanned today's paper and saw that Japan and parts of China had been hit by a major tsunami. It was presumed to have been caused by the remnants of the International Space Station crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

A tsunami evacuation warning was going out to the Hawaiian Islands, Wake Island, as well as most of the west coast. What he read had him almost wishing all of California would be hit by the tsunami. It just might be what they needed to put out all the fires.

He was still shaking his head and wondering who was left to call to get some much needed help when suddenly his entire office started to shake. Bookshelves fell over, a light fixture crashed to the floor, falling from the ceiling. At first he was hanging onto his desk until he decided he was better off hiding under it.

The earthquake only lasted about thirty to forty-five seconds, but he was already beginning to question what else could go wrong. Too much of the state was on fire; now there was going to be still more damage.

Once the quake subsided he was up and out from under his desk and picking up the phone to find out where it was centered and how bad. Problem was his land line was dead; he reached for his cell phone.

He was thankful that a lot of important number had been stored on it. He had people he needed to reach out to. Several included the local TV and radio stations. He had work to do and he knew Bracken was going to be totally useless.

His day only got worse when he found that he had no signal. "GREAT! The cell towers are down." Now he had to go activate the emergency system to find out what had happened.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Sir, I have the update you requested," an official said. Putin held out a hand to take them so he could read them.

The more he read the more furious he became. He was losing military bases all over the country. He had already lost every ICBM he had in his inventory. Initially he'd greatly feared that the US would learn about it and strike when they had the chance, expecting no retaliation.

Now, though, his spies were telling him that the US was also being hit and likely had no ICBMs with which to strike Mother Russia.

Worse, without a military, he had no chance of expanding his control. He also was losing his ability to respond to an attack by NATO. He seriously doubted that NATO had the balls to attack Russia. Without the support from the US, they were mostly toothless. But they could still do damage.

It also meant he needed to make some phone calls. There were sites that this official knew nothing about that he needed to check on. He glanced at him. "You may go." He had what he needed from him. Once he was gone he picked up the phone and made a call.

A short thirty minutes later he had two generals and one admiral in his office.

"Spiders?" Putin was still having trouble believing it. Then he was handed a photo of one that someone had managed to take. He'd actually been thinking large live spiders. What he was looking at didn't look alive though it was obviously doing damage.

"We have a report that a squad of men tried to kill one. It literally scurried over to the first man, climbed up him, and destroyed the weapon in his hands. One of his squad members had been firing at it all the way. He actually killed the soldier as it climbed up him. It only took second for his weapon to be turned to dust. That same spider then attacked all the weapons that squad had on their possession. Save for the one solider there were no casualties. It simply moved on to another target.

"We believe that there are hundreds of thousands in our territory," the general said gravely.

"The same is happening to our ships. The Black Sea Fleet is all but gone at this point in time. I ordered all submarines to leave port in an attempt to save them. However, after submerging we've heard nothing from them. I'm sorry to report it's likely that they have also been lost." The admiral was fast running out of ships to command.

Putin leaned back in his chair. His military was quickly being turned into dust. If he'd had any ICBMs remaining he would have seriously considered using them before losing them. But he had none. Even all of his portable units couldn't be contacted. He was forced to assume that they too had been destroyed.

Still… He leaned forward and gripped the edge of his desk. "Do we still have contact with out Boomers already deployed?" He might still have a few ICBMs left he could use.

The admiral's brow creased while he thought. "There are only two that were deployed before all of this began. But we won't be able to communicate until they surface long enough to send us a micro-burst filled with data. When that happens we can order them to do whatever you order." The admiral knew what he hoped Putin would tell him.

"Good. When they make contact order them to firing positions and launch every ICBM they have onboard. Make sure every target is in the US," Putin ordered incisively.

"At once." The admiral saluted and hurried out of his office. He wasn't exactly sure just when they would contact them, but he needed to be ready. He smiled the entire way.

Putin was satisfied. Lose them or use them. If he was going to lose them, might as well put them to use.

"Order the manufacturing of weapons to be increased. I want every factory working twenty-four hours a day until we make up all our losses. Forget what it will cost, just get it done." He couldn't attack anyone if he didn't have anything to attack with.

"Yes sir." His two generals saluted and left him.

He got back on the phone. "Find out what the Americans know and are doing. Hack into every office we presently have access to. I want information." Putin hung up the phone. All of his other hacking attempts had been detected. But he lied and told everyone he had no knowledge of any of it. It was standard operating procedure.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

One of his best had answered his request. "Sir, you asked for an update."

He took it all and started reading while noticing that his _Segen mishne_ hadn't left him. It was a lot to read and all of it was bad.

They'd lost all of their military bases. Though to be more accurate, those bases had lost all of their equipment. They had already lost all of their nuclear capacity. Now they'd officially lost every plane, every tank, and every other military vehicle. That included what little navy they had.

Then he got to the pages that were an update on what was happening in Egypt, Syria, and especially Iran.

What they'd learned was that all of the Middle East was being attacked just as heavily as they were. He'd already contacted Bracken in an attempt to find out what was happening. If their enemies found out they were defenseless his only hope was Bracken and what he could send.

Bracken was noncommittal. The US president was easily the most hated person on the planet. His enemies hated him and now even most, if not all, of his allies hated him. No one was inviting him to visit their country and all of his attempts to have a leader come see him had also not worked out.

He was still snickering about finding out that the Super Bowl winners had refused to come to the White House. The winning NBA Championship team had done the same thing. Then Bracken had simply canceled all the others.

He went to no one and no one came to see him. Everyone needed allies on this planet, yet Bracken had isolated himself and his country. His political party seemed to like it that way.

Though unlike a lot of other countries, the US was still sending his country millions in aid. Bracken had cut or eliminated aid to a countless number of countries.

He was shaking his head about the number of committees in the United Nations that Bracken had withdrawn from. The only real seat he had was just the one.

"Thanks, you may go." He had read enough. There wasn't anything he could do about it and soon there wasn't going to be any Israeli military. His only silver lining was that all of his neighbors were in the same boat as he was.

Still he wanted to know why the Americans had not yet shot down that alien ship that was doing all this. He knew they had the capability. But why hadn't they done anything?

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

At first the captain heard a lot of firing of weapons. But that was short-lived and now silence reigned. It was enough that it had him out from behind his desk.

He found his aid sitting at his desk with a phone in his ear. The captain waited.

"There are reports of an attack. Our men responded. If what I'm hearing is to be believed, spiders were doing the attacking. When our men attacked them, they turned their attack on our men. But all they destroyed was the weapons the men were firing." It made little sense to him, but that was what he was being told.

"Contact all squad lieutenants. I want a report of all actions being taken. I'm going to find out firsthand what the hell is going on." The captain left him and went out into his National Guard base.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was sitting in his chair; he actually missed seeing his wife at her station. It was her day off much like he had had a few days off. Still he needed to be kept up to date so he was doing a lot of reading on his personal screens. Everything seemed to be going just as planned.

"Commodore, I have an ICBM launch!" Ensign Zitek suddenly exclaimed.

"WHAT! Explain." All ICBMs should have been destroyed by this time.

"It appears to have been fired from a submarine hiding under the polar ice cap."

Before Rick could respond to that bit of news he heard Zitek say, "Commodore, I have a second launch from a different location. It appears to be yet another submarine."

Rick was pissed. They'd gone to a lot of trouble to find all of them so how had they missed two submarines armed with nuclear weapons?

"Lock one of our main weapons on each submarine and fire when ready. Target the ICBMs with interceptors and fire once they leave the upper atmosphere."

Rick waited and watched Robertson do his job. "Targets locked… Firing."

"Scan each submarine. I want to know what nation has control over them." That nation was going to learn a lesson today and it was going to be costly.

"Both submarines have been hit. Both targets destroyed," Robertson announced.

"No new ICBM targets are on scans. The two are just reaching the upper atmosphere," Zitek reported.

Rick waited for information. "Interceptors fired… Both targets have been destroyed," Robertson said.

"Commodore, both submarines are from the region called Russia."

"Control, correct me if I'm wrong, but the political and military control are housed in an area they call _The Kremlin."_ Rick needed to be sure of his target.

"Affirmative, Commodore. The area consists of several buildings, both above and below ground."

"Weapons, split our two main weapons into four beams. Target all Kremlin buildings. Destroy both above and all underground installations." They would pay for this action.

It took Robertson a moment or two. "All targets accounted for, ready to fire." Robertson was ready to press the panel.

"Fire."

The result was four beams striking the buildings and burrowing down into the ground. Then they traveled from building to building, destroying everything they touched. The people inside who didn't die instantly would find themselves trapped under tons of rubble.

It took a couple of minutes. "All targets destroyed, Commodore," Robertson advised.

"Scan the planet again. I want to know of any more weapons grade plutonium that's on this planet. They **cannot** have access to any more of these weapons." Those weapons weren't a hazard to his ship. However, they were to bring this planet into the Empire, so letting them kill themselves was not an option.

"Commencing planetary scan, Commodore." It was going to take time. Ensign Zitek was still shocked that they had managed to hide some of them from her. It was **not** going to happen again.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"This is nice." Kate fingered a small necklace that she thought might be perfect for Alexis. But Alexis was shaking her head; she didn't like it.

She watched as Alexis moved over to some rings. "No rings, sweetheart. You're still far too young. Maybe in a few years." Though it did help Kate decide on what to get her for her upcoming birthday.

"Are you done with your birthday party invitations?" she inquired. Alexis had wanted to hand make the five cards for the five people she could invite to her birthday party.

Alexis began shaking her head. "You need to finish, little love. What do you need to finish them?" They could go shopping for that instead.

"Glitter." Alexis wanted them to be amazing and very dazzling.

Kate's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Glitter? All right, then let's go find some glitter so your friends get them in time." They needed to find another store.

Kate needed to wait for her husband to get off work so they could go get everything to decorate with for her birthday. That and make sure of all the food and drink. She was only going to turn five once.

Plus they both had to go check to see if their gift to her was finished. It was going to be handmade by one of the shops. It was going to be one of a kind and just for her.

They really hoped she liked it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Empire**

 **Chapter 10**

Rick and even Kate were glad that their little girl was only going to be five once. They were both getting tired trying to keep watch over six girls that were running all over their quarters.

Added to that were the questions that all five guests had for both Rick and Kate. Being in the commodore's quarters had turned out to be part of the fun of attending Alexis's birthday.

Rick finally had Kate alone to himself while they watched over Alexis ripping open her birthday presents. As was custom Rick had gotten her two while Kate had also gotten her two. Her guests were not expected to give her any presents. They were there simply to help her enjoy her birthday and the very tasty food.

"You're sure you want to have another? What if it's twins?" Rick was beginning to think he was too old to keep up with this many little girls. Granted having three was half of the six that were in their room now, but still…

Kate smiled at him. "Yes, my Husband." She kissed his cheek and watched her daughter start with one of her gifts.

Alexis held it up so she could see and show it to her guests. "A flying unicorn!" Becca shrieked enviously.

Alexis pulled out her second one from Kate and threw the birthday-themed wrapping paper away, not really paying any attention to what it looked like. She took out just one and looked at it, puzzled. One of her guests took it, slapped it on the floor, and watched as the pink shoe lit up with purple lights around the sole.

"COOL!" Collette gushed.

"I know what I want for my birthday now," Serena said.

Alexis took back her shoe and grabbed the other one out of the box. She slipped off her shoes and put her new ones on. This was followed by her running around the room while watching her shoes light up.

She plopped down on the floor to open one of her dad's gifts.

"WOW! …watercolors," Katelyn said. "I wish my mom or dad would get some of those for me." They watched as Alexis pulled out a high-end palette of colored paint cakes, watercolor paper, and brushes to paint with.

Rick defended himself from the look his wife was giving him. "We need to find out if she's artistic. Besides they're water-based so it will easily wash up."

"You could have gotten her those paints that only show up on certain types of paper and not on anything else," Kate countered. All she saw was a mess that they were going to have to clean up.

Rick ignored her and went back to watching his daughter open her final present. This one he knew was going to take some explanation but he was hoping that when she saw it, she'd love it.

Alexis ripped the wrapping paper off, opened it, and began pulling out crumpled tissue paper until she finally found a plain envelope. It wasn't what she was expecting and her face dropped; it hit Rick and Kate right in their hearts. She opened it and read what was inside. She could read every word but it was still a little confusing. "Daddy?" She wanted to understand.

Rick smiled a wide smile as he walked over to them, took the card, and read it for himself, not that he needed to since he wrote it. "Seems simple to me," he teased. "It's an invitation. They're going to build you a new bed and you get to pick the style and color."

Technically her choices had already been approved by both Rick and Kate so she didn't have that many choices. Still she got to pick from three styles.

"WOW!" came from a few of the girls.

"REALLY?" Alexis was all smiles as she leapt up at a speed even Rick couldn't duplicate and found himself being hugged. "Thanks, Daddy!"

A new bed that she got to chose and not just get and live with. "You're welcome, pumpkin!" Rick hugged her back and then whispered in her ear. "Thank your mother, too."

That had a smiling Alexis running to Kate with her new shoes lighting the way. "Thanks, Mommy!"

Kate's heart felt instantly better and was now even more sure that she wanted another child. "You're welcome, sweetheart. I love you." Kate kissed her cheek.

"I love you, Mommy." Alexis kissed her back and then ran to Rick. "Love you, Daddy!" Alexis hugged him again.

Those were the times when Rick was happy to be married and have kids.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

The general had information and it just couldn't wait. He blew past the kid that sat out front and ignored him shrieking that he couldn't go in there. The planet was changing and at the moment he wasn't even sure if he was going to be a general much longer. Mostly because he wasn't sure there was going to be a military to be a general of. "Fuck off ass-licker!" He opened the door and went inside.

Inside he found Bracken all alone yet again. It was nothing new to him. No one came to America anymore and his requests to visit another country had stopped. "Mr. President!" He may hate the guy but he was the President and it was his job. Bracken didn't acknowledge him; Onorati walked up to his desk and placed a folder on his desk. "We have new information, Mr. President. It's been confirmed by people on the ground since all of our satellites are gone."

Bracken just sat there, looked at him, and ignored the folder. It was exactly what the general knew would happen. "The alien ship has destroyed all of the buildings that make up the Kremlin complex. It has left the entire area a large crater in the ground. Some type of beam weapon." The information on the beam weapon had been hard to believe at first.

Bracken sat there and took the news. "Putin?" Okay the Kremlin was gone, but what about the only friend he still had on this planet? The only person he saw as being his equal.

The general shook his head. "If he was in the Kremlin complex at the time, he's gone. Along with hundreds if not thousands of others." He had only an idea of just how many people would be there at any one time.

He had delivered his news and left Bracken alone in his office. He walked past the kid at his desk. He couldn't resist since he saw a new future coming. "You better go in there and lick his ass clean while you still can."

General Onorati was still smiling widely as he left the White House. He knew America didn't have much of any kind of military at the moment. However, he also knew no one else did, either. The planet was now free of all of its ICBMs. No nation had the ability to destroy the planet several times over any longer.

But getting off the White House grounds wasn't that easy. The entire place was surrounded by protesters who were furious with their president. His policies were not very popular. His decision to place tariffs on everything imported from China had increased costs of everything. The country was finding out just how much was made in China because the cost of production was so much less there.

Americans might have needed jobs, but a lot of those jobs were beneath the average American. They expected to be paid at least the minimum wage if not a lot more. Although to make those same items in America greatly increased the cost of those same items. It was literally too expensive for companies to make manufacture those goods here.

Then there were the people that weren't happy about everything else. Finding out that their military was virtually nonexistent was worrisome, but unsurprisingly it was the loss of the planet's satellites that had pissed off almost everyone. There was no more satellite TV or any communications that required satellites.

Mobile phone signals, weather tracking, and GPS were the ones most of the public knew about. And that included NASA. They couldn't monitor the weather on the planet. Their satellites that took images of things far out into space were also lost.

All of the satellite phones that FEMA and other government agencies used were lost.

The Coast Guard lost the ability to coordinate their rescue operations that required the use of satellites.

Agencies lost the ability to monitor animal migration, locate mineral deposits, watch agricultural crops for weather damage. Not to mention losing most of the ability to follow weather patterns. The ability to follow hurricanes was now impossible.

Even worse, as far as the general was concerned, was the loss of all of their spy satellites. The CIA no longer used people on the ground like Russia or other nations did. They relied mostly on satellites. Losing the Kremlin was a prime example. With no satellites to take pictures they had to rely on people on the ground using common cameras.

While everything in orbit had been lost, it had included the hundreds of thousands of junk that circled their planet. Their orbit was effectively clean.

This was clearing the way for the last chance that he and others saw for striking the alien ship. They had a rocket that was being assembled that was going to have the largest warhead that America had. It was going to be a prototype based on a concept that was almost purely science fiction. With no junk in orbit they had nothing to worry about before it hit the ship.

General Onorati made his way away from the White House and started his long and difficult to follow route to an off site location. He had others were working on what came next. One lone ship was stripping their planet bare of military weapons. They needed to come up with a plan if they still wanted to have any say in what happened on _THEIR_ planet.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

 **It has been a month**

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Report on the progress of the transformers that have been deployed so far." Rick had read the report, however that was a few hours old. He wanted the latest available information.

"All targets destroyed, Commodore. All scans of weapons grade nuclear material have been accounted for. All military bases planetwide have been attacked. Save for any weapons presently deployed and being actively used, all weapons have been eliminated," Robertson reported.

It had taken time and they were presently about three to four months into their deployment.

"Coordinate all scans and send all deployed transformers to the active combat sites. It's time to eliminate the last of this planet's coordinated combat capability," Rick ordered.

It took an hour to coordinate everything. "All orders to transformers confirmed, Commodore."

It was going to require a few weeks to get all of the deployed transformers moved to other areas of the planet since all of them moved by conventional means. Meaning they walked.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Alexis was in bed and Kate settled in next to her husband on the sofa. "Husband, are you sure that removing everything in orbit was wise?" Her place on the Bridge was as the ship's captain and from her control chair she monitored all of the ship's functions. Including what was happening on the planet. She had found what he'd done to be concerning.

Rick stared at his wife. He was in command of this ship. If she wasn't his wife he might consider relieving her of her station.

"The larger nations that are more modern have populace that are protesting what has happened. Things that they took for granted have been taken from them and they're angry." Because of that Kate believed converting them to the Empire was going to be more difficult.

"Short term loss for long term gain," Rick countered. "When the military's gone we'll address the planet. Those nations that support our rules will be rewarded; those that don't will feel the fury of the Empire." He'd decided on the carrot and the stick strategy. If nations behaved themselves they would be rewarded with technology and goods from the Empire. Those that didn't would suffer.

"You and I both know that eventually this entire planet will be ruled by just one person. It will take years, but the entire planet will benefit. Eventually interplanetary commerce will commence. Things they don't even know exist will be available to them," he reminded her.

Kate leaned back and thought about it some more. She **had** agreed to this course of action. It was just that the planet was suffering now. Her thinking was that the longer it lasted the more the people would resist.

They were both interrupted by a communication's signal. Kate was up first to answer it. "Hi, how can I help you?" She recognized it as one of Alexis's birthday guest's mother.

"Paige has been asking me if she could invite Alexis over for a sleepover. Our quarters aren't as large as yours, though, but we'll make room for her." They both knew that Rick and Kate's quarters were the most spacious on the ship. The largest spaces were dedicated to universal use by the entire crew.

Kate looked over at her husband. He had to have heard the request. She saw him nod. "Tell me when and I'll prepare her. …And thank you." She knew Alexis would love it.

"Two nights from now. Is that enough time?" She knew Paige would want tomorrow night but Alexis's parents needed time because of their schedules.

"That will be perfect. I'll make sure her overnight bag is ready. Thank you." Kate ended the call and went back over to her husband.

She leaned in close to whisper into his ear. "We will have the entire space to ourselves," she murmured then kissed his cheek.

Rick opened his eyes wide. He hadn't thought about that. His gaze drifted over his wife's body. His mind was now working on all the places they could have sex at or on with Alexis gone.

Kate saw the look he was giving her. "We could practice for that night tonight…in our room." She smiled at him and found herself being lifted off the sofa then carried to their room.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was actually whistling on his way back to their suite. He'd dropped off Alexis for her sleepover and hadn't taken exception to the fact that his daughter barely noticed him while he was there. She was already off playing with Paige and one other girl.

He'd left with a, "Call if you have any problems," reminder. He was sure that Alexis would be a good girl, but something might come up.

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Paige's mom had assured him.

Rick pressed the panel to enter their suite. He'd no sooner made it past the door when he saw Kate standing there waiting for him. It was what she was wearing that had his attention.

She was clad entirely in black: a strapless black corset that had metal clasps down the front, black string panties, black stockings with garters to hold them in place, four inch black heels, and even long, black satin evening gloves.

He watched as Kate trailed her gloved fingers over her lips and caressed her cheek. She was standing there with one hip far out to one side. "We're having sex all night long, Husband. …Do you think that you're _UP_ for it?" she teased and bit her fingertip. She smiled, watching Rick strip off all his clothes as he slowly made his way toward her. Her smile only grew as she watched his cock get larger and larger all the way over to her.

She huffed in surprise when he picked her up, placed his hands under her ass, and shoved her back roughly into the wall behind her. Kate wrapped her legs around him and felt his hand pull her panty to one side. That was immediately followed by feeling his cock at her entrance. She was glad that she had stroked herself to get herself wet since he wasted no time in burying himself deep inside her.

She squeezed her eyes closed and moaned at the feeling him inside her. Rick soon used his strength to lift her and lower her down on him. He slowly built up the speed of his thrusts. "GOD, YES, BABY! Fuck me." Kate did her best to squeeze herself around him as he continued to fuck her hard, deep, and faster and faster. She turned her head and bit his ear – hard. Savagely enough to draw blood that she could taste. That had the result that she was looking for. Rick moaned loudly, thrust hard one last time, and climaxed inside her.

Kate loved making love to her husband, but she also liked being fucked by him. The idea that he was dominating her gave her a thrill that was hard to describe.

She kept herself wrapped around him until he softened and slipped out of her. He made have come and while she had enjoyed it, **she** hadn't yet climaxed. Kate unwrapped her legs around him and stood up. She took his hand and guided him over to the sofa.

She lowered her panties until they hit the floor. Then she sat down on the edge, leaned back, and spread her legs wide. "Eat me, baby, make me come hard." He had an orgasm and she wanted one of her own.

Kate grabbed hold of his head at his first lick and tilted her head back. As much as she loved having his cock inside her, she loved having him eat her pussy.

"Oh baby, yes, that's the spot." He knew her well and knew her spots. He knew her so well that just as Kate was ready to ask for him to insert a finger inside her, he did just that.

"YES! Eat me, fuck me." Kate grabbed a handful of hair. Then she all but screamed when he used two fingers instead of one.

Her eyes opened wide when she was sure he had switched to three fingers. He stepped up his tongue's assault on her clit. Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt her orgasm approaching fast.

"BABY, PLEASE!" He needed to not stop. Then something changed; her pussy lips started to spread even wider. Startled, she looked down at what her husband was doing. "OH GOD…" He had just past his knuckles up inside her and if he was going to do that she really needed lubricant. Then she lost sight of what he was doing when he went back to stroking her clit with his tongue.

"OH GOD, **RICK** **!** " Kate was loving the feeling and felt her first orgasm coming closer. When he stopped licking her clit she looked down and saw him add more lubricant followed shortly by seeing his entire hand missing. It was missing because his hand was inside her. He was fisting her pussy.

Then he started moving it in and out a little, never actually pulling his hand all the way out. The very first lick had her screaming the passion of her orgasm.

Kate slowly came down from her orgasm and looked down to see her husband carefully slide his hand out of her pussy. That had been a first. He had never done that before. Her pussy must be wide open after that.

She saw him with a towel in his hand. He reached over and gently wiped all the lubricant off her pussy and legs. When he was done he leaned down and began to lick her pussy wet again.

He stood up and she saw that his cock was hard. He also had his hand wrapped around it and was slowly stroking it. She surmised he must have been doing that the entire time. "Up, Wife." Rick reached out for a hand and lifted her up to stand next to him. "We're going to inaugurate our little table." He bent her over the table and pressed her down onto its top. She reached out to grasp the far end. Then she felt his hard length ram itself deep inside her.

Kate squeezed her eyes closed and let the pleasure of having her husband fucking her from behind take her over. He had one hand pressing her down onto the table while the other was holding her in place as he sped up his thrusts. He was really fucking her hard and it was amazing. Her pussy had never been this open before. It was a totally different experience for him.

It was a good thing that the table was there since Kate was sure her legs weren't holding her up. The pleasure was so intense that they'd turned into jelly.

"FUCK ME, MAKE ME COME! Come all over your big cock." She was loving every moment of it.

That was right up until…, "GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!" the voice of Lieutenant Commander Emma O'Hairt came over shipwide communications followed by the klaxon of General Quarters being sounded.


	11. Chapter 11

**Empire**

 **Chapter 11**

Rick had stopped fucking his wife. He'd actually pulled out of her and had turned to look at their door and the door to the bridge on the other side.

Kate felt it, however her mind was so gone and her legs were still jelly that it took her a few moments to recover. "Husband, the door will be locked." Surely he knew that?

Rick was silent for a moment. "I know," he whispered. It was just that this was his ship and by right he should be on the bridge handling this.

Kate risked that her legs were working again and moved to wrap herself around him. "We'll need to wait." They didn't have a choice. She could also still feel her pussy pulsing from having his hand inside her and just recently his cock. "Baby…finish me before the all clear and then you can go find out what happened." She needed him to finish fucking her. But he didn't move. "Husband…, please." She wanted that next orgasm. They were supposed to be fucking their brains out all night long with Alexis being gone.

It was enough that Rick twisted to face her. He saw the pleading on her face, then he felt her fingers wrap around his erection and start to stroke him. He soon felt his blood flowing and his need to finish himself manifested. "You want to be fucked, do you?" He smiled, spun her, and slammed her down onto the table, causing her to cry out from the shock and a bit of pain. He placed his cock at her opening and plunged into her, causing Kate to tremble from the pleasure. Rick quickly built up to fucking her as hard and fast as he could.

Kate knew she was whimpering from what her husband was doing; she was loving it. "Yes, fuck me, baby. Fuck me hard. …Make me come." Her legs had turned into jelly again and all that she recognized was the hard cock that was pounding her pussy.

"I'm going to come," Rick groaned, hoping that Kate was ready. He began pumping her pussy full of his come. While the urge to just stop fucking her and bury his cock deep inside her was almost overwhelming, he kept fucking her until he heard her scream out her own orgasm.

He was effectively spent and let his softening cock slip out of her, barely noticing his own come seeping out of her still wide open pussy and dripping onto the floor.

Kate lay on the table until she was sure her orgasm was over and that her legs were going to work. She finally stood up and faced her husband. She loved him and this had only reconfirmed that. She reached up, put her arms around his neck, and raised up on tiptoe to kiss him. "I love you, my Husband." Kate searched his eyes. "Go, find out what happened, then come back to me. We still have a full night of sex before us." She was nowhere near ready to stop yet.

"I love you too, Wife." Rick brushed her lips with his. "I'll tell you what happened when I get back." He kissed her again and headed to their room to find some clothes.

He found her waiting at their door. Kate reached out to take his hand and placed it on her still wet pussy. "Just reminding you of your place." She reached up to kiss him.

"I'll be right back." Rick knew he would have to wait out in the hall until the door was unlocked.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Ma'am, I'm reading a launch from what they call United States. Very southeast section?" Petty Officer Lorna Wickersham called out.

"I thought we eliminated all of their ICBMs." How had they done this?

"We did. This launch is coming from their private commercial area. They call it NASA."

"Scan it for payload." What were they launching? "Estimate where it's headed." Were they launching at them or at another nation? These people loved to kill each other.

"Scanning… Payload is **not** a nuclear device." She quickly ruled that out. "Ma'am, the payload is a primitive plasma device. Trajectory suggests **we** are the target." This was new and it was a threat to them.

Lieutenant Commander O'Hairt wasted not a moment and pressed a panel on her chair. "General Quarters, General Quarters. This is not a drill. …Secure the door." She had full faith that the Marine already was doing so, but she needed to follow procedure.

"Weapons, get me a lock on the target. Prepare two interceptors and launch when ready. Raise the shields." She knew it was still in the lower atmosphere and might cause damage to the area of the planet it was presently over, but this ship came first.

"Ma'am, scans suggest that their device is **not** stable. It appears that plasma is already leaking out of the device." They obviously had no idea how to build the real thing.

"Fire when ready." She didn't care when or where it blew up. "Scan the area where it was launched." She waited for the results to show up on her globe.

"Firing interceptors," Lieutenant Hertford announced.

"Weapons, divide up our two main weapons into two beams each. I want this entire launch complex destroyed." Allowing them to launch another device from this location was not acceptable.

"Target destroyed. Targeting area. …Ready to fire."

"Fire." This area needed to be destroyed.

The general populace that were driving past the area saw four bright white beams reach down from space and strike the launch sites that NASA operated. The launch towers, support buildings, and preparation buildings began to be destroyed one after the other. When the beams finally ended all that remained were four separate lines of destruction that were several feet deep. Each line traveled from one area to another. Debris was ejected from each trench and traveled for hundreds of feet. Some of it landed on roads, forcing cars to slam on the brakes or turn suddenly to avoid crashing.

"Complex destroyed, ma'am." He ended the beams and let another station scan for verification.

"What happened to the plasma weapon?" Now that the event was over did she concern herself.

"At four hundred and four feet above sea level it was destroyed over one of their oceans. Damage to the locals should be limited." Only if there was boats in the area should there be any deaths or injuries.

"Begin scan of planet. That device had to have been constructed somewhere. That complex needs to be destroyed." One was already too many. A second would be their fault.

The second she canceled General Quarters and had the door released, Rick entered the bridge and started asking questions.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Report!" Rick wanted information about the alert and what they'd done because of it.

He listened closely to Emma O'Hairt as she explained all the actions that had taken place.

"Plasma weapon." He shook his head. Why did this planet revel in killing each other? He and his wife needed to come up with a plan that would help eliminate this tendency for self-destruction. That or they would have no choice but to wipe the planet clean of all life and turn it over to the Empire for colonization.

Rick issued an order. "Start scanning for all their weapon construction plants. Perhaps we need to divide our priorities. These people appear to have weapons on the brain and are only too willing to kill each other. Scan only for now. Once their operational weapons are dealt with we will decide."

He turned to Emma. "Also scan other countries. If the United States can do this it's likely another can as well. Russia or China come to mind so focus on those two first."

"Yes, Commodore. And when we find a site?" She knew what she wanted to do, but he was the commodore and in command of this ship.

"Destroy the site as you see fit. That and all the surrounding buildings just to be sure." He knew this planet was likely royally pissed at him. That, though, would change in time after they started to learn what was out there that would benefit them.

"Carry on." Rick was satisfied for now. Even if he was beyond angry at this planet. They had added other planets to the Empire, but none of them had been anything like this planet. This planet was a mess.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate was sitting naked on the sofa when Rick reentered their suite. "And?" She wanted to know just as much as he did.

"The United States launched a rocket from a commercial area that had a primitive plasma bomb on it. The stupid thing was so poorly made that it was leaking the second it was launched. Being so primitive and slow made it easily dealt with." He had been satisfied with the response of his ship and the decision she had made.

"Good. …Now where were we?" she purred and spread her legs wide.

"I was just going to…" Rick looked between her legs and saw that she was wet. Likely because she had been spending some of his time being gone stroking her pussy lips. "It's a good thing I'm starving and we have all night." He began stripping and was naked by the time he was on his knees, placing his head between his wife's spread legs.

Kate held his head in place. "Insert two fingers, baby. Make me come all over your face." Several minutes later she was screaming out her third orgasm of the night. She was looking forward to several more.

Rick was done eating his wife's pussy for now and stood up and instantly found his wife's hands and lips on his hard cock.

"Your turn, baby. I love your cock." Kate gave it all the attention it deserved as well as a complete tongue bath. She was even rewarded with having his come go down her throat.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate woke up and found herself lying crossways on their bed. What was missing was her husband. Except for her, the bed was empty.

A quick look told her that she needed to pick up Alexis in about two hours. More than enough time to shower, get dressed, and make herself presentable.

She rolled over to get out of bed. However that caused pain. "Stars above, what did we do last night?" Her pussy hurt, her muscles hurt. Hell even her ass was burning. Kate put a hand at her bung hole. "We didn't. …Did we?" It sure hurt like they had.

Still Kate stood up and that was when she found her husband. He had either chosen to sleep on the floor or had rolled off the bed. "Oh, baby." She started to bend down to wake him and get him off the floor. It was just that every movement caused her muscles to scream at her. For a moment she considered that they'd had too much sex. But she also knew that that was impossible. If her muscles weren't so sore she would willingly have sex with her husband one more time.

Kate shuffled to their bathroom since taking steps that were any larger caused muscles she didn't know she had to complain.

She was still a little sleepy as she stepped inside and came up short as she saw herself in the mirror. She was a mess. Stepping in closer she saw marks on her breasts. Tilting her head she found a mark on her neck. She did her best to look at her thighs and found still more marks. "I've been marked." She was conflicted as to whether if she liked this or not. She liked the idea that they had fucked their brains out last night. She just wasn't sure she needed to be marked so effectively by her husband. It wasn't like she was going to have sex with anyone else.

Kate stood up from inspecting her legs to find her sleepy husband stepping in behind her and wrapping his arms around her. She relaxed and leaned back into his arms.

"Husband, did you fuck me in my ass?" Evidence suggested that he had. She just didn't remember it. She started praying that they hadn't started drinking which might account for her memory loss.

Rick started smiling which told her that he had. "You said it was your last cherry and you wanted me to have it. It took a lot of lubrication and your ass is really tight." He'd enjoyed that part.

"My ass is burning, Husband. We either do that a lot so I can adapt or we never do that again."

"It's your choice, Wife. If you want my vote, I vote we do it more often. Your ass is nice and tight." Rick kissed the back of her head. "I need to pee." He left her and headed for the toilet.

Kate looked at herself in the mirror. "More often or never again?" she asked the woman in the mirror who naturally didn't respond. Instead she went back to looking over all of the marks on her body.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was at the door and was waiting. "Good morning, Commodore. Let me get Alexis ready. Please step inside." She left him to head to her daughter's room to retrieve Alexis.

Rick stepped inside and looked the place over. It told him that their quarters were larger and he was happy for the privileges of being the commodore of a Battleship.

"DADDY!" Alexis came running and found herself being scooped up by him.

"Did you have a great time?" Rick questioned.

"It was great, Daddy. Paige has a player! Can I have a player?" Her friend had something that she didn't and wanted to fix that.

"You'll have to ask your mother about that." Rick deferred which caused Alexis's face to fall. She had been sure her dad would say yes so she could use that on her mother to get one.

"Have you said thank you to everyone for letting you stay the night here?" Rick asked.

That had Alexis turning to look at Paige's mother. "Thank you!" Alexis put all the sincerity into it that she could.

"You're welcome, Alexis. We were glad to have you." It had helped to keep her own daughter quiet all night long so that she and her husband could get some rest.

"Can I do it again, Daddy?" Alexis was ready to do it again.

"Let your mother and I talk about it. I'm sure we can arrange something in the future." He was thinking weeks if not months from now. Alexis, though, heard next week. Still she hugged her dad for that. "Let's go find your mother and get you to daycare. Your mother and I have work today."

"Thank you again," Rick told Paige's mother and left their quarters.

"MOMMY!" Alexis found her sitting in her uniform on the sofa and jumped partly on her and partly on the sofa.

"Did you have fun, sweetheart?" Kate hugged her and kissed her head. Alexis's actions told her she had but still she asked.

"It was great, Mommy. …Mommy, can I do it again?" Her dad hadn't answered her question.

"I told her you and I needed to talk." Rick told Kate as Kate watched Alexis's face fall.

"Your father and I do need to talk, though I'm sure we can work out something in a few weeks. Maybe Paige and another of your friends here next time," Kate said to get that smile back on her face.

"YES…, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Mommy." Alexis hugged Kate as tightly as she could.

"Let your daddy get you ready for daycare while I spend some time reading." Kate didn't want to move if she didn't have to, plus she needed to catch up with what was happening on the ship.

"Okay." Alexis jumped back down and ran to her room, leaving Rick to catch up.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was in his command seat as he watched his wife enter to relieve her night shift person. He did his best not to grin as he watched her shuffling her feet and not taking long strides with her incredible legs like she normally did.

He would never admit it, but he was sure last night had all but guaranteed that he wouldn't have an erection for another month.

They'd actually collapsed from exhaustion where they had been at the time. It was why Rick ended up on the floor. He had been on the floor eating his wife's pussy one last time before they both gave up and went to sleep. At least it had been a tie as to who would give up first.

Rick counted it as a win as he watched his wife carefully sit down before signing in and starting her work.

He was busy reading last night's notes when Communications announced something. "Commodore, I'm getting yet another message from the planet directed at us," Ensign Strubler reported.

"Ignore it, we'll talk when we are ready and not before," Rick quickly responded.

Then he thought about it. "Who's sending it?" They had been signaling them daily and they had ignored all of them.

"This one is marked as being from President William H. Bracken of the United States of America…personally." Most had been tagged as being from a specific country. A few had been more personal like this one.

"The same United States that attacked us last night." Rick doubted that the two were not connected. He absently shifted in his seat. "How far along are we on destroying the active forces on the planet?" He knew there were fights using weapons practically all over the planet, or so it felt.

"Analyzing now," Rick was told and he waited a bit impatiently. "Estimate that we are 23% complete at this time. At this rate I estimate that the action will be totally complete in about one week and three days. The smaller conflicts will be finished first."

Rick thought about it. "Continue to ignore all communications from the planet for now. We'll talk when we're ready."

"Yes, Commodore." She ignored them and let them repeat it over and over again until they finally stopped.

Rick saw his wife turn her chair to look at him. "Carrot and stick, carrot and stick. Right now they're getting the stick. It'll make the carrot that much sweeter when we offer it." He didn't see his wife smile or scowl at him. She simply turned back to her station.

"Where are we on completion of scans of the planet for all weapons-making locations?" They needed to destroy those as well or these people would just begin replacing what they'd lost if they hadn't already.

"Scans for weapons plants are at 79% complete. Scans for any locations that are part of the design and construction of the plasma rocket last night stand at 34%. Rescanning for any missed military bases stands at 89%. Also rescanning for any weapons grade plutonium that is unaccounted for stands at 94%. Finally rescanning for any military hardware that might be hiding below the polar cap, or hidden deep inside the planet stands at 97%." Rick got much more than he asked for.

It told him that his crew, especially those that were scanning the planet, just might be overloaded with work. Still they needed answers to all those scans. "Maintain all active scans." The sooner they finished with the stick, the sooner they could start using the carrot.

Rick went back to studying his globe and marking progress of the transformers that were attacking weapons that were presently in use in combat areas.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Captain, what's that?" A soldier saw something in the distance with his naked eye. This place was hot, filled with blowing sand and waves of heat rising off the sand. What he was concerned about was the possibility that Iraq had somehow managed to launch an unseen strike at them as they sat here waiting.

It had his captain raised his binoculars. Then he was on the radio asking for an identification. But before he got a reply, a wave of crystalline spiders came scurrying in.

A lot of them raised their weapons to fire at them after they watched the first of them descend on an Abrams main battle tank and a minute later leave it a small pile of dust. This caused several of the spiders to jump at the soldiers and leave their weapons as small piles of dust in the sand.

As the wave moved past they left little piles of dust behind them. Tanks, rocket launchers, Bradley fighting vehicles, M-16s, even their hand weapons were not spared.

The only amusing part was the towed artillery. The artillery was turned into dust, however the vehicle that towed it was left behind. The same happened to all of their Humvees. If it was armed, it was turned into dust. If it didn't have a weapon mounted to it, it was left behind…untouched.

Worse, they hadn't stopped a single spider.

"WHAT THE HELL, SIR!?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Empire**

 **Chapter 12**

They had no satellites so they had no images. They were fast running out of planes and even helicopters. They had little to no idea where the enemy was at the moment. What was worse, the enemy had been the Iraqis. Now the real enemy had turned out to be crystal spiders.

"Report!" The general didn't know what to do next. His command was falling apart all around him. If the Iraqis had worked out what was happening to them, now would be a good time to attack. The Iraqis would have weapons while they would be down to fighting hand to hand with knives.

The old saying was _Never come to a gun fight with a knife._ The problem was, it was looking like knives were just about all he had left.

"Sir, 7th Corps is reporting that they are under attack by crystalline spiders. They're being wiped out. Their weapons are having no affect. If they have any weapons to fire. The soldiers themselves are being left untouched. It's only their weapons that are being attacked." He had trouble believing it, however, that was the reports that were coming in.

He'd been alerted to what was happening all over only just recently. All of his satellite communications were down and had never come back. He had been forced to send a runner to a city and use a landline to try and get anything. He'd only just gotten word about the spiders.

He didn't dare tell his junior staff that they were under attack by aliens from space. Only his senior staff knew anything. "Try and raise the airfield. Use the radio sets, not the satellite set." He had 21st century equipment and was beginning to think he was going to have to resort to using runners like they had in WWI. That or pigeons. Or maybe smoke signals.

He was waiting for his call to the airfield when there was a commotion outside his command tent. Then a soldier came running in a little out of breath. "We're under attack! Spiders! There are spiders everywhere!" The soldier had no sooner informed everyone what was happening outside the tent when a crystalline spider came scurrying inside. It instantly jumped at the soldier that had issued the warning and turned his weapons into dust.

The general drew out his side arm and took aim just as a wave of spiders entered his command tent. He started firing at spiders that had spread out and had begun destroying weapons.

The general had a spider jump at him and land on his hand. An instant later it was gone and his hand weapon was gone. Frozen in surprise, he stood there, watching it all happen. Then just as fast as it had started all of the spiders were gone.

He had soldiers standing around completely weaponless. "Get on the radio. Alert all commands to be on the look out for spiders. They're to fire on them wherever they encounter them." His command was being turned to dust right in front of his own eyes. Reading about it was one thing. Having a spider eat his weapon right out of his hand was another. He held up his hand and looked at it intently. Save for there not being a weapon in it, it didn't look any different.

Looking around he saw all of his staff and soldiers. None of them appeared to be injured.

"Sir, what the hell was that!?" He had never seen anything like it in his life.

"I want a report on injuries!" His staff needed to get to work. He clapped his hands together several times. "Get to work people!" He clapped his hands several more times. "I want an injury report. I want an update from all commands. I want to know what squads or groups that are still active. I want to know who had eyes on the enemy. …Now people!" Everyone looked too stunned by what had just happened.

Then he got a question. "Which enemy, sir?"

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Jane had thought life had been basically okay. She, her husband, and their young teenage children were all healthy. Her husband had a good steady job at a weapons manufacturer in Yuma, Arizona.

Arizona had a weapon in full sight law. Meaning you could carry a weapon in plain sight anywhere you wanted to go. Most however only did this out or near the desert where a lot of people went to go shooting.

Her husband as part of his job routinely carried a weapon to and from work.

Their lives had gotten better the moment Bracken had been elected. He advocated more guns not less. It was just that he didn't enforce his ideas on gun control. As a result the foes of the NRA had gained a measure of control. This had the result of people fearing that their weapons would either be limited or taken away from them causing a large increase of gun sales. His company was working overtime and the pay was good. Though there was one problem in their home.

" **MOM!** " her son bellowed yet again.

"Yes?" She poked her head into his room to find him sitting at his computer.

"The Internet is still down. I can't find anything." His life and that of his brother had gone straight into the toilet.

"I've called them, honey. They say there's nothing they can do about it. Something about satellites. It was all over my head. They said they're working on it." They'd already had this conversation more than once.

"Try watching TV or if worse comes to worse, go outside and play with your friends. Get some exercise." She didn't have all these high tech gizmos when she was his age. Life was just different now.

"The satellite TV doesn't work either!" Life was hell as far as he was concerned.

"Well go get your glove, ball, and bat and go find your friends. You liked watching baseball, go find out if you are any good at it. Just remember to be home for dinner." She really hoped he would do it.

"Oh and take your brother with you. Go have some fun. The sun's out and there's no rain in the forecast." Actually there was no rain in the forecast for months.

"The sun's always out with no rain, Mom. This is Yuma!" The city straight from hell as far as he was concerned. Why couldn't his parents live somewhere exciting? Florida, California, Hawaii. He could learn to surf. Go parasailing. Live his life on a beach with girls in bikinis all around him. But no! They lived in a desert where it was always hot!

"FINE!" he groaned, getting yet another message that his Internet connection was down.

"Slap on some sunscreen, Joey, and make sure Trent uses it, too." If she thought her sons were a pain now, having them come home looking like cooked lobsters and just as red would be worse. "Lots of sunscreen!"

"YES, MOM!" he grumbled as he headed to the bathroom where the sun screen was kept.

She heard the door slam closed and decided to relish in the silence while she still could. Her husband was at work. The kids were out of the house. It allowed her a moment to think.

She could grab a book that she hadn't read. Or…she could go warm up Freddie. She chose the latter.

Moments later she was naked on their bed, with her legs spread wide as she worked Freddie in and out of her pussy and ignored the sound of it vibrating.

The tip would hit her clit just as she plunged it deep inside her and she left it there for a moment to let it vibrate over her clit, before pulling it back out and plunged it back in. She lifted her ass off the bed just as her orgasm washed over her. It coincided with her hearing the front door slam.

" **MOM!** " a voice yelled. " **DO WE HAVE ANY SODAS?** " Her son was back.

"Damn it!" At that point she thought that not having Internet or TV was a bad thing. Her chance to relish coming down from her orgasm wasn't going to happen. Huffing out her annoyance, she scrambled for something to wear and went to find out what her son needed this time.

Five minutes later her son was leaving with a six-pack of cola which was all they had that was cold. Heaving a sigh of relief, she stripped, hopped back into bed, and picked up Freddie. "Now where were we before we were rudely interrupted?"

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"MOM! Can we go? Can we go **now** , please?" Alexis was bouncing. She had been looking forward to this day for a long time.

"We just need to get you changed, sweetheart. Something comfortable and maybe your new shoes." Kate watched her rocket into her bedroom to find her shoes.

Alexis was literally pulling Kate down the corridors so she could get there faster. Then they had to stop at the door while Kate handed over their passes. "You're cleared, enjoy your time," the older man who stood by the door told them. Alexis raced inside to look around and decide what to do first.

"How about the train first?" Kate offered as she watched it stopping at a station. Beaming, Alexis ran to it to find a place for them both to sit.

It had a brightly colored engine with four cars, each holding two people. The train was a cartoon animal theme ride. The engine was blue, yellow, green, and red. Each car was the same. They were yellow, pink, and red with an orange roof. The roof of each car held a cartoon animal.

It slowly made its way around the entire deck.

One entire deck had been installed with amusement park rides. There were, however, a few limitations. One was space. A set number of people were allowed inside daily. As a result names were chosen at random for each day. Another was the ceiling height. The limited height meant nothing left the floor. There were a select number of rides for young kids like Alexis, for preteens, and for adults.

Alexis saw something interesting. "Ooo, can we go there next, Mom?"

"Sure, just as soon as the train ride ends." They were there for her little girl after all.

"Ohh!" Alexis saw another ride and now she was conflicted over which one came next.

Kate stuck with her first choice and they were soon riding a water train that had water guns mounted on each of six cars. Each car held two people and each car had two water guns. The ride went round and round a small mountain that had a number of targets for you to hit. The more water you got into the target the more you scored.

The next ride was a kiddie roller coaster. It was a dragon ride that consisted of five cars that held two people each. It went up toward the ceiling only once and then mostly went round and round. It was so short a ride that they actually went around twice.

"Okay, what's next?" They had ridden all of the kiddie rides and were down to the preteens and adult rides.

Alexis looked around to see what there was to do. Then she pointed.

There were a number of machines that were for a single person. The player sat in front of a screen and did whatever it was. The one that was empty at the moment was a car racing game machine. Kate thought it was a little complicated for her, but she was willing to let her crash and burn a few times before she gave up. "Okay."

Alexis sat down. "Turn the wheel to go left, turn it to go right. The harder you turn the wheel the tighter your turn will be. Put your foot down to go faster, lift it to go slower. Ready?" Kate turned on the machine and watched Alexis try to drive.

By her fifth time she was actually starting to get better. But better wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to be very good like the older kids. "The next one is open, ready to switch?"

Alexis was done with this game. She wasn't very good at it so it wasn't really any fun.

This one was different. It was a horse racing game. The player sat down in a colorful chariot and pulled the reins to get the horse to turn or pull back to get it to stop. The route they took was at first filled with trees and flowers. Then they were going through a small town. Finally they went out into a desert.

Kate watched Alexis pulling too hard, constantly crashing into the border of the course. She gave her a little advice. "Don't pull as hard, sweetheart. Try and go straight."

Still Alexis tired of it easily since she was having trouble with it.

"Okay, where to next?" Kate suggested a kiddie ride. "Back to the water guns?" But Alexis pointed at a different ride.

Kate looked it over and thought maybe it was way too much for Alexis. It was an adult ride and the required height for the ride was sixty inches tall or taller. Alexis was too short and the ride wasn't advised for women that were pregnant.

"It says I can't ride it, sweetheart, because I'm going to have a baby. How about a different ride. …Maybe that one?"

On that ride one would sit in a chair that floated above the floor. It then lifted up a little tighter and they were in front of a large screen.

Kate and Alexis were soon flying through the air, going over water, over mountains, going down streams.

When the ride was over and they were back outside, Alexis said, "Again!" She'd loved it. It was meant for preteens but it was a little tame so Kate agreed easily.

"What's that one?" Alexis pointed to a different ride. It had twelve seats but didn't look like it did all that much.

"Let's find out." It looked tame enough to Kate for Alexis to ride.

They each got strapped in and then all twelve seats started to spin up to one side until it went over and then down before doing it all over again. Eventually it stopped up high and teased the riders about going down the same side. Then it went down going the opposite direction.

Alexis had liked it but it was too tame even for her. It didn't really do anything. "That one?" Alexis pointed to one of the rides they hadn't tried yet.

Kate read the requirements. "This is an adult ride, little love. Not meant for you. How about the train ride again?" The number of rides was limited and she was only five.

Truth be told Kate had never heard of such a thing on any of the Empire's ships. Actually having this many civilians on a Battleship of the Empire was unheard of as well. But since they had just over three more years for their mission, they would be back here several more times.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Alexis burst through their front door and found her dad sitting on the sofa reading a pad. She raced over and jumped on him. "IT WAS COOL, DADDY!" She hadn't enjoyed all of it, but she had for most of it.

"Good, so we can put your name in the drawing to go back again?" Rick asked, smiling.

"Please, Daddy." She would go back tomorrow if her name was drawn.

"You entertain our daughter. I have a doctor's appointment." Kate leaned down to give him a quick kiss and kiss her daughter.

"Are you sick, Mommy?" Suddenly Alexis wasn't nearly as happy.

"I'm fine, sweetness. I just need to go check on the baby is all. I'll be back before you know I'm gone." Kate kissed her head again then left.

Alexis was silent for a time and Rick used the time to resume reading his pad. Then he heard her ask, "Daddy…what kind of baby is Mommy having?" She meant boy or girl.

"We don't know yet. It's too soon to tell. We'll find out in a while," he replied and went back to reading.

Alexis didn't say anything for a while but then she asked, "Where's the baby going to stay?" Was she going to have to share her room?

Rick put his pad to one side. "With me and your mother at first until it gets older. After that we're not sure yet. We may have to remodel our space to create room. What worries you, pumpkin? Your mommy and I are going to love you just as much after the baby comes. That isn't going to change."

"Do I lose my room?" She was a big girl now and wanted her room to stay like it was.

"Your mother and I still have to talk about that. We might have to make your room a little smaller and this area a little smaller. It isn't going to happen anytime soon, so your room's safe for now. Nothing's going to change," Rick assured her.

That had Alexis going back to being quiet and Rick picked up his pad to go back to reading.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Mrs. Castle, how are you feeling? Any morning sickness?" the doctor queried.

"My race doesn't typically get morning sickness, so no, I haven't had any nausea." Kate had been thankful for that.

"How's your supply of prenatal vitamins?"

"I have enough for about three weeks. I, um, I've been getting some really weird cravings lately." She had kept some of them to herself.

"Cravings are normal. Eat anything you think you need. Just make sure your meals are well balanced. Lie back for me, please, and let's take a look." Kate watched the panels meet above her and enclose most of her body.

"Now let's see…. Your blood pressure is within norms for your race. Based on your blood work I'm going to suggest that you double your vitamins just until your next visit. Okay, let's take a look at your baby." Then she pressed a series of panels. "So far so good. They both look like they're developing nicely." They were the right size for the time of her pregnancy.

"BOTH!" Kate turned her head to look at the doctor.

"Identical twins, Mrs. Castle. Congratulations! We won't know the sex for a few more weeks. But you and your babies are doing just fine. They don't share an amniotic sac which is very good." She retracted the panels and allowed Kate to sit up.

"Come back in four weeks and I might be able to tell you more. Likely you will be able to hear your babies' heartbeats. Just keep doing what you're doing, take your prenatal vitamins, and get ready for more cravings."

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Still stunned at her doctor's revelation, Kate was wandering down hallways, not really paying any attention to where she was going. She walked into Engineering. "Can I help you, Captain? Captain?" She looked a little lost to the chief engineer.

"What? Where am I?" Her head whipped around in surprise. "Engineering!" How had she made it all the way down there? "Sorry, I'll leave you to your work. Thank you." Kate walked with purpose to the closest transit pod.

She and her husband needed to talk. They seriously needed to come up with a plan. Their bedroom was going to get a whole lot smaller.


	13. Chapter 13

**Empire**

 **Chapter 13**

Rick found his wife waiting for him at their door. She had taken Alexis to school and was back already. "Today's going to be a big day. Based on our scans this is going to take some time to complete." He still didn't understand why this planet loved weapons so much. He was beginning to think that everyone on this planet was a murderer in waiting.

"It's going to make a lot of them angry, my Husband," Kate cautioned.

"They're already angry. Angry enough to fire their primitive weapons at my ship!" Rick countered loudly and cursed internally that he'd raised his voice at his wife. He lowered his voice intentionally. "We can't let them have all of these weapons. If we don't tame them somehow there's really only one other recourse." He was doing his best to bring them into the Empire and not kill them all.

Kate hung her head. Her husband was right. Which in itself didn't make it better.

"We've actually killed very few people given the number of people on this planet." He huffed impatiently. "I still don't see how they feed themselves. This planet is way over populated." He'd even given consideration to reducing the population by say a billion or more.

"Plus this planet is polluted. The air is bad in a number of locations. Almost unbreathable in some places. Did you see the report about the amount of trash that's floating around in one of their oceans?" And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Kate let him talk. Even she wasn't happy with what these people were doing to the planet itself. They were sucking it dry then spewing it back out as pollutants. At least they could no longer blow the planet up.

"The Empire will be cleaning this planet for years to come." Rick shook his head. Now that they were on the subject… "You're sure we shouldn't just–" Kate interrupted him.

"NO, Husband!" She was still a little shocked that his mind was still considering cleansing the planet and turning it into a colony planet.

"The Empire might be better off." Rick had weighed a number of pros and cons over just what to do.

"Husband?"

Rick sighed. "Fine, we'll do it your way. Just don't be angry with me if it doesn't work out. These people seem bent on killing each other. Two world wars. Plus the little ones by comparison that are all over the place, and don't get me started on what some of them tried to do." He'd read the report about what had happened in Cambodia as well as what had happened in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

Kate had read those same reports as had most of the bridge crew. "I know, my Husband." She leaned in to give him a quick kiss. "Come, or we'll be late. The night crew's going to start to wonder if we're even going to show up." She took his arm and guided him to the bridge door.

"We do our jobs. This deployment is for four years. Don't give up on them now." Kate knew her husband was a little more like them than her race. But even he wasn't as bad as these people.

"We'll finish this phase then we can move on to the next. Maybe once they learn what awaits them…" Rick tried to be positive, but it wasn't easy.

They relieved their night crew and read through what had happened during the night.

"Weapons, we arrived with one hundred million transformers. It's time to put the majority of them to use. You have the list of target cities. Today we'll deploy ninety million of our hundred million transformers to those cities. Based on our scans all of them contain weapons that even the civilians have access to." It wasn't just the military that was trying to kill the others, it was the civilians as well. "Begin deployment, we need to rid this planet of weapons. All of their weapons," Rick commanded.

"Yes, Commodore." Robertson had been waiting for this day. It was going to be a big day. "Beginning deployment." It was going to take a few hours to deploy that many transformers.

Plus he had to redirect the ones that were already on the planet to various closest cities.

Rick watched his globe as group after group left his ship and headed for the planet.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?" He pointed only to find yet another jumping onto his weapon that was sitting on the table in front of him.

"SOMEONE FUCKING KILL THAT THING!" His weapon had just been turned to dust in front of his eyes.

He watched as one of his brothers pulled out his weapon and even managed to get a shot off before one of the things that looked a lot like a spider jumped at his weapon and turned it to dust.

In all there were six of them and it was all over in just seconds. They left; none of them were injured and all of their weapons had been turned to dust.

"Get the other fucking weapons and someone tell me what the fuck those things were!" He'd never seen anything like it before. What he wanted to know was why hadn't his lookout said anything. If he had a weapon he would shoot the son of a bitch.

Someone came back and gave him the bad news. "Gone, all gone!"

"What the fuck are you talking about? They can't all be fucking gone." He shoved him to one side and went to look for himself. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? DON'T JUST STAND THERE, FIND OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!"

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Captain? We're getting a lot of reports. Our officers are being attacked by what they call glass spiders. What's stranger still is they're only attacking all the weapons in their cars. Even their hand weapons and backup weapons."

"What are you blabbering about now?" He got up from behind his desk and walked out into the center of the police building. When he looked around he saw everyone was on a phone.

"I've got another unit that's been attacked by spiders," one of his officers called out.

"Same here," Officer Humphrey said

"Two more!" Detective Wellman shouted.

"What the hell is–" He was interrupted when a group of spiders that looked like they were made of glass came into his building. Stunned for a moment, he watched as the spiders went in different directions, jumping onto weapons, and turning them into dust. "SHOOT THE DAMN THINGS!" He ran into his office where he'd left his weapon. He had only just recovered it when a spider entered his office and jumped onto his hand. A moment later it left, leaving a small amount of dust behind. He was shocked into inaction for a moment or two. He rushed back out into the main area and watched as the spiders left his building.

"Weapons?" His was gone so what did they have now?

He heard a lot of, "They got mine." Then he heard the worst part. "They got into the armory room. All the weapons and all the ammunition. All that's left is a small amount of dust."

"BLOODY HELL!" His command had been reduced to knives, batons, and hand to hand in just seconds. "Send out an alert. I want all cars and officers to be on the look out for spiders. Attack any that they see. …While they still can." He added the latter a little more softly.

"Move it people, before we lose every weapon this precinct has." He turned to go back to his office. Once there he picked up the phone. He needed to find out what the hell was going on and get the message out about spiders that destroyed weapons.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They were ready, they just needed their ride to show up. They had their weapons, chain saws, rope, and empty boxes along with their night vision goggles.

It was basically easy money. Hunt down the animals, kill them, saw off what they wanted, stow them in the boxes, and go home. The only really problem was finding someone that hadn't gone all _Nature Lover_ on them.

"Where the hell is he?" He was going to be really late. That was when a pair of spiders inched in under the door and hurried around the room, turning all of their weapons to dust and hurrying back out just as fast.

"What the hell was that?" They had only destroyed their weapons and ammunition. All of it!

"Now what?" Except for the weapons they had all that they needed. The authorities and the world called them poachers. They called themselves business men. The world wanted ivory and they were willing to supply the need.

"We collect money and go buy more weapons, what do you think we do?" He pushed everyone out of the building. They only really needed one.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

He had his ship all lined up. They'd been following this pod for what felt like hours. He just needed for them to come up for air and his gunner would fire. They would haul it next to their ship and proceed to cut it up and place the good stuff in his hold. Then back to port to see it and make a lot of money.

His radar showed that there were no other ships near him. No Greenpeace ships, no military ships, no one to stop him. It was good money and the public in Japan was only too willing to pay for what he was more than willing to provide.

His screen alerted him. He grabbed the mic. "Stand by, they're on the way up." His men hustled to their stations. He picked up his mic again. "One minute." He needed this kill. He and his crew needed the money. The tariffs that the United States had imposed on nearly everything had made everything that much more expensive. The economy had not yet collapsed, but people were starting to get really angry and the markets were showing signs that a collapse was nigh.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE!?" He watched as a pair of spiders that looked to be made of glass climbed up over the side and attacked his bow mounted cannon. In just moments they and his cannon were gone.

His man was just standing there looking up at him. He grabbed his mic. "What were those things?" All he got was a shrug of his shoulders. Now his boat was weaponless. He had little choice but to go back to port and try and find another one. One that he could afford.

"DAMN IT!" He had the pod all lined up. One quick kill, a few hours butchering it and he would get paid. Now he was going to be out money and forced to search for yet another pod.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Two men entered his building. "Can I help you gents?"

"We need some target practice. We have our own weapons and ammunition," one of them replied.

"Rifles, long distance, or hand weapons?" He had space for both so it didn't matter.

"Rifles, please. What's your farthest target?" They needed practice for a long range target.

"One mile. Not many people attempt it, though." He began to try and size these two up. It would help if he saw the weapon they planned on using.

One man looked at the other. "It'll have to do." They had hoped for something longer but a mile would be a good start.

He slapped a set of targets on his desk and told them the cost. "What the hell are those?" He looked past his two clients and saw a pair of somethings enter his store.

All three of them watched as these two entered and promptly went to all the weapons on display and started turning them into dust. "Fucking Hell!" He pulled his ready at all times weapon out from under his desk and started firing at the spiders that were turning his weapons to dust.

"WHAT THE HELL!" One of them jumped on his hand and a moment later his hand was empty save for a touch of dust.

In just a couple of minutes they were gone and so were all of his weapons in the room.

"Our truck!" One of his clients suddenly sounded concerned and they both ran out of his store.

The store owner went out his back door and saw more spiders scurrying around all over. "NO!" He watched his .50 caliber machine gun be turned into dust along with all the other weapons.

"DAMN IT TO HELL!" It had cost him a small fortune to get all those weapons. Replacing them was going to be even more costly now.

Next he had angry customers that were demanding their money back. They had paid for the use of his shooting range either with their weapons or one of his. They also had a lot of questions. Most of which revolved around what those spiders had been and where they'd come from.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

He hated to be here but the President should be told. "I need a moment of the President's time. It's important," he told the kid at the desk that blocked entrance to the Oval Office.

"Do you have an appointment?" Jason was still in charge. He and he alone held access to the President and he was loving the power and position. Jason was drunk with it and all he had to do was lick Bracken's ass occasionally. In his mind it was worth it.

"No, I don't have an appointment. I'm James Carlton, the Washington D.C. Police Commissioner. Just tell the President that I'm here about the spiders." He'd heard some rumors about this kid. But he had his own position about the President himself. Personally he thought Bracken was an asshole. Actually he hadn't voted for him. Not that that stopped the President from telling the country that he had won the election by the largest majority in history.

Jason knew spiders were a hot topic so he picked up the phone. "You can go in." He knew the President was alone in his office. He'd made sure of it all day long.

"Mr. President." He was after all still their President even if he didn't like the man.

"What do you need?" Everyone seemed to want something. No one seemed to be on his side anymore. His decisions were being questioned by everyone. He had done a lot and the press, that he despised by the way, paid no attention to those things.

The police commissioner cleared his throat. "There are thousands if not tens of thousands of spiders that appear to be made of glass in the city. Several of our precincts have been attacked. No officers' lives have been lost, however they're all now without weapons of any kind. Our officers are going to be responding to calls totally unarmed. Leaving them open to attack. The city's gangs may soon be ruling the streets." He wasn't sure just how bad it could get. It was just with officers down to batons and taser guns, it was looking bad.

"Damn aliens," Bracken muttered to himself. His Presidency was being ripped out from under him all because of an alien space ship. Though he knew without a doubt that he couldn't lose the cities or especially the rural areas where his base was located. His base at least still supported him.

"I'll see if I can–" Bracken was interrupted when three armed Secret Service members came charging in.

"We need to get you to a safe place, Mr. President. The White House is under attack." He personally had observed a spider eat a weapon out of the hand of one of his men.

Bracken had little choice when two of the three men took hold of him and pulled him up out of his chair. Once outside of the Oval Office, all four of them heard weapons fire.

"This way, Mr. President." Not that Bracken had a choice since he was being manhandled and forced to go in whatever direction the men chose to take him.

"What's going on?" He wanted to know who was attacking him. HIM!

"Spiders, sir. They look like they're made of glass." They pushed him down a hallway and through a door where two more Secret Service men were waiting.

"Spiders!?" The aliens were actually attacking him. That was utterly unacceptable. They'd gone too far this time.

"Inside, sir." They reached an elevator and pushed him inside; the three went with him. The other two remained behind. Just as the door started to close, Bracken got his first look of a spider that had been destroying his country. His Presidency. It actually did look to be made of glass and this one was kind of reddish in color.

It scurried incredibly fast across the floor as he saw the two Secret Service men firing their weapons at it.

Once they reached the bottom there were three more Secret Service men waiting for him.

"This way, Mr. President." They ushered him in through a massive vault-like door that had more in common with one of those enormous safes you saw in the movies.

Once he was inside it closed and was locked. It had happened so fast it was just him and those three Secret Service agents that he had found down there already and himself in the big room. "You should be safe here, Mr. President," one of the three said. There was no glass so at the moment they couldn't see anything outside of this room.

The four of them started turning on various pieces of equipment. Some of them were cameras that covered several areas inside and out of the White House.

They were soon watching as spiders were scurrying all over the building, mostly inside.

"What's this area here?" Bracken didn't even recognize the space that was on the other side of the door.

"They're here!" One of the Secret Service men looked at the door. The door should be secure. This place should be able to survive a direct hit by an ICBM. "What the hell!" He watched as the door seal near the floor began to fail and in came a spider. He and the other Secret Service members pulled out their weapons and started firing. In this enclosed space the sound of three weapons firing was deafening. Bracken hunched over and clapped his hands over his ears to block out the sound.

The spider and one more just like it were quick. They dissolved all the weapons in the room and scurried back out. It left the four of them standing there not really understanding just what had happened.

It should have been impossible.


	14. Chapter 14

**Empire**

 **Chapter 14**

 _It is now two months later_

"Have we reached an agreement?" Rick asked his wife as they got dressed after putting Alexis in the tub.

"I see little choice. Alexis wants a room to herself. She'll just have to adjust to having a smaller room." Kate really didn't see another way to manage their growing family's needs.

"I'll make arrangements for the remodel of our suite right after our shift," Rick said.

The plan was to make Alexis's room smaller. Her bathroom would be turned into a Jack and Jill bathroom by adding another door. Their main room would also be made smaller. At first the twin girls would be in their room. While they grew up their space would be remodeled and the twins would ultimately get bunk beds when they were older.

"I'll take Alexis and go baby shopping. We're going to need so much for the babies. Most of what we had for Alexis is long gone."

Kate watched him pull a large container out of their closet. She'd wondered what was in it, but had kept quiet. "Husband, what's that?" She wanted to know _now._

"You don't think I'm going down to that planet without a weapon do you?" In all likelihood this planet hated them and they seemed to hate everyone else all over their world.

Kate watched him take out a sheathed weapon. "A sword?" She'd thought he would take one of the rifles their Marines used.

"I picked this baby up on one of my tours a number of years ago. It's called Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. It's a soul eater. Whoever you kill with it literally has his soul ripped out of his body and the sword eats it to power it. It has several different attributes. It will serve me fine." Rick looked it over since it had been a little while that he'd handled it. It was a two-handed sword and was almost as long as he was tall. The blade was curved and gave off a soft blue glow. It almost looked to be made of a single gem. The handle was gold in color. Save for those two things it looked unremarkable.

"Armor?" Kate was still looking over his weapon of choice and trying to decide if she approved of it. She wanted him to come back in one piece.

"Already planned. I'll be wearing exactly what our Marines will be wearing. Your job is to keep our fighters over me just in case." He and a squad of armed Marines would be going down in a shuttle. Their fighters would be their escort.

"Be careful, Husband. I'm not raising our girls all alone." Technically she would, but her heart would have a huge hole in it that would never be healed

"We'll be careful, Wife. Might be a good idea to have a second shuttle already in orbit. Never hurts to be careful and prepared." They might not get to him or the Marines. However, they might manage to damage their shuttle.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate relieved the night crew and sat down in the command seat. She had things she needed to do first. Then she moved on to what concerned her the most. "Communications, verify that our message has been received by all nations." They'd sent out a message a week ago that they would be sending a team down to the planet to speak to all nations in a building they called _The United Nations._

"Confirmed, Captain. A number of nations have actually responded and informed us that they would have a representative in attendance," Ensign Boze replied.

"Give me a detailed scan for miles around the area. I want to know of anything that has never been there before that might present a danger to our team," Kate ordered as she sat back and used the globe to zoom in on the area.

A couple of minutes passed. Ensign Zitek turned in her chair and said, "There are a large number of what they call _Police Units_ in the area. Far more than normal, Captain."

"They're all weaponless. It may be for crowd control. Keep an eye on them," Kate said and returned to looking over her globe.

"What are these? Scan them for me." Kate zoomed in on one of the number of flying machines that were circling the site.

"Those are news helicopters, Captain," Zitek responded.

"Scan each of them and advise our shuttle pilot and fighters. They may decide to try and use one for a ramming action." Kate had heard of this happening on other planets.

"Yes, Captain."

Kate was informed when the shuttle and all of their remaining fighters had launched. It allowed her to watch them all on the way down on her globe.

"Are all of our satellites in orbit and operational?" They had plans for them.

"All satellites are operational, Captain. We're ready for transmission." She knew as did everyone else that worked on the Bridge, that their commodore's speech was going to be broadcast using this planet's communications systems. Taking them over had been easy.

"Very well, stand by." They just needed to wait for her husband to begin speaking.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Whisper Two, buzz that bogey to warn it away," Whisper Leader called out as a news helicopter was getting just a little too close.

He watched it; it was undeterred and remained on course. "Shoot it down."

Whisper Two had already come around, locked on his target, and fired. A tiny globe that looked like it was electrified shot out from his craft and struck the helicopter. The electrical charge seemed to quickly envelope it from back to front. Once it was fully engulfed the electrical charge and the helicopter vanished.

"Target destroyed," Whisper Two announced and went back to covering the shuttle, not giving it a second thought.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Did you see that! They shot down a news helicopter. Bastards!" One of the other news helicopter pilots had seen everything. "Did you get a shot of that? Get it to the station when we land. Make sure they see it. They need to pay for that. Amongst other things." He'd already strongly disliked the aliens; now he really hated them.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate watched it all and barely had a second thought about the destruction of the helicopter. To her way of thinking they were after her husband.

Rick was sitting in back with his squad of Marines and waited for them to land. He knew where they were going to set down and had approved the location. It seemed to be the safest way to get inside.

"Fifteen seconds," a voice informed all of them.

The pilot came down and landed on the roof while barely putting any weight on it. None of them were sure if the structure was meant to hold the weight of their transport, so he simply hovered in place.

"We're down," the same voice announced.

One of the Marines opened the back ramp and the Marines charged out onto the roof en masse, taking up defensive positions. "All clear, Commodore." Rick was allowed to come out.

It was a relatively tall building if not a little boxy-looking. It wasn't to his liking, nor were any of the other buildings anywhere near it. Not only did they seem bent on killing each other, they built ugly. If they would listen, the Empire could do a lot here.

Three Marines walked over to the edge, stepped off, and fell. Rick stepped up to the edge and waited.

Like it was nothing, the three Marines fell until they were close to the ground. At that point they fired their thrusters, floated to the ground, and then spread out. "Clear." They saw no offensive looking targets.

Rick and eleven Marines stepped off and followed what the first three Marines had done. It only took a minute and Rick and all fourteen of his Marines were safely on the ground.

"Let's go find this assembly area." Rick waited for his three Marines to take point.

Getting in was easy. Finding this chamber in what was starting to feel like a maze was not. Though seeing a pair of double doors that was surrounded by uniformed men told them that was probably the door they wanted.

His three Marines out front had turned into four. "Get out of the way and allow us to enter. You will **not** like the alternative if you do not," Rick said loudly.

None of the twelve men moved and what was probably worse, a couple of them looked to be talking to their hands. Rick scanned his display and saw the signal that was being sent. "They've called for reinforcements. Open fire and clear the door." His wife wouldn't approve, but he was in charge and he had something to say to this planet.

It only took a couple of seconds as all twelve men disappeared when the electrically charged ball vanished after being fired by his Marines.

The first three Marines opened the door to step inside and found another six men that looked just like the others. They, however, had brains enough to back away when the Marines leveled their weapons at them.

"Seal the door then spread out and find all the other doors; seal those as well. Kill anyone that tries to stop you. You two are with me." Rick barely kept an eye on any of his Marines that spread out to do as he ordered.

He watched one of his two Marines throw a device at the door they had come through and was satisfied that any reinforcements would not be gaining access through that door.

The room was large and filled with people. It appeared that he was way at the back and the central location was far to the front. There were hundreds of people, some sitting and some standing between him and it.

Rick pulled out his sword. "Let's clear a path to the front. Start walking. If anyone gets in your way, shoot them."

What Rick mostly saw as the three of them walked was that everyone got out of the way. Also most everyone in the room was male and elderly to very aged. He'd seen something like it before. It wasn't unusual for a society to rely on their elders. After all they did have the most experience and knowledge. The really young ones were generally full of hormones and rash in their actions.

He also saw a lot of people holding up objects that his suit told him were recording devices. It made sense that they would record this event. Plus they'd already made sure that this planet had no weapons.

There was only one instance where Rick was sure a Marine was about to fire, only to see him back away. He paid him little heed. It was the ones that were sneering at him as they walked by that he paid attention to. Those, he was thinking, had already made up their minds.

Rick and his Marines had finally reached the other end and all three of them walked up the steps to reach the highest point.

He came there to deliver a message so it was time to get started. He looked at one of his Marines and pointed at the ceiling. This had the Marine letting his weapon fall to his side; he pulled out a small tube and fired.

The ball reached the ceiling and exploded, causing a wave to wash out over the entire room. What had been a room filled with voices was now totally silent. Rick looked out at everyone; he scanned a few and saw the device had worked as planned.

The Marine took up his weapon and Rick removed his helmet.

"None of you can speak or move at the moment. It will wear off with no ill effects. I am Commodore Richard Castle. I'm in command of the starship SSE YI SUN SHIN representing Emperor Shimazaki of the Empire. This planet is now the property of the Empire. It's my job to prepare you for entrance into the Empire.

"As I speak our laws and regulations are being transmitted to all areas of your planet. Each of these laws will be strictly enforced by our transformers. It's their job to dispense justice as dictated by the Empire.

"There's only one penalty for each infraction of any law of the Empire until you're officially inducted into the Empire." He paused for a moment. " **Death**. It will be quick, immediate, and final. I'm aware that a few of your nations believe in something called an _Appeal._ There will be **no** appeals as they relate to the laws of the Empire.

"For the moment each of your nations may retain your present form of government. You may keep your president, prime minister or whatever you call the person in charge. Eventually, when you're inducted into the Empire, all that will change. Your planet will be ruled by a single person who will be expected to enforce the laws of the Empire. If he does not, his life will be forfeit and a governor will be appointed for you.

"As you will have noticed, all of your planet's weapons have been eliminated. This includes your ability to make more. Until you are officially inducted into the Empire that will **not** change. How long that takes is up to you." He paused yet again.

"Should you decide as a planet that you do not want to be ruled by the Emperor, then we will cleanse your planet of all human life as well as everything you have constructed, turning this world into a colony planet of the Empire. A blank planet suitable for colonization." Rick gave them a moment to let that sink in.

"There are a number of benefits of being members of the Empire. You will be allowed to freely trade with all planets that are part of the Empire. Also any nation that chooses to abide by our laws at this time will have their cities razed to the ground and replaced with new modern cities. Each city, save for food, will be self-sustaining. There will be fresh drinking water for all citizens and businesses. There will also be free power for all citizens and businesses. All housing and places of business will be provided for free. Each city will be provided with droids that will perform all of the maintenance at no cost. The money you make will be converted to Darseks for trade within the Empire should you decide on trading with other planets within the Empire.

"Each nation that agrees at this time will be cleansed of all pollutants. Your air, water, and land will be cleaned of pollution. All pollution that's presently at sea that's headed for your nation will also be cleaned up.

"This planet will only be allowed access to the Empire AFTER it has been cleansed of all pollution. Your need to suck your planet dry then spew the pollutants out into your streams, land, air, and oceans will no longer take place and will not be tolerated. Your need to abuse your planet will end." Rick gave them a moment to think about what he'd said.

"An example of the type of city you can have is being transmitted to each and every nation at this time. Inside each city there will be electric cars that any citizen can use and share. All of the cars, trucks, and all other transportation that currently releases pollution will be eliminated. This includes all of your ships.

"Each city will have a dedicated electrical transportation system for people and businesses. You simply need to reach these locations to travel to other cities. Your nations will have all details for each city and what will be provided.

"The Empire is going to improve lives on this planet. Or we will eliminate them completely and turn this planet into a colony planet. You will also find that transportation between planets of the Empire will also be offered once you are brought into the Empire.

"The Empire is vast and at present contains two hundred twenty-three planets in just under two hundred systems within this galaxy. Eventually people on this planet will be able to obtain a ship with FTL. That, though, is likely far into the future.

"It's your choice: join the Empire and profit from it, or be eliminated as a species. I will await your answer." Rick began to leave and put his helmet back on only to take it off. "Remember, there are no appeals and there will be no deals in our offer. The laws of the Empire are clear and they **will be enforced**." He put his helmet back on and left with his two Marines.

Once he joined up with the other Marines they chose a side door to leave through and found that it was mostly empty. It wasn't until they were back outside that they encountered anyone. It turned out to be the press that ran his direction to start hurling questions at him.

Rick and the Marines simply used their thrusters and headed for the roof and their shuttle.

It was an uneventful ride back to the ship.

The moment they left the atmosphere, everyone inside the UN room was released. The room instantly erupted into shouting. They all had questions and needed to find out what was being transmitted by the aliens.

Aliens that didn't look all that alien.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Husband?" Kate descended on him the second she entered their suite.

"They needed to know the stakes, Wife. It really is join the Empire or be eliminated. Even you know that," he reminded her.

Kate closed her mouth. He was right and that was what concerned her the most. "And if one nation says yes and another says no? What then?" Did he have a plan for that?

"I know what I want to do should that come up. But I'll allow you to try and convince me that there's another way. One way or another, this planet is going to be part of the Empire."

She sighed and sat down next to him. "Maybe one nation will join quickly and we can show them and the others what they will gain." Talking was one thing. Showing what was possible was another.

"Perhaps." He conceded that it was possible. "Is Alexis with her friend tonight?" Were they alone again all night?

Kate smiled and snuggled up to her husband. "We have all night to make love, my Husband. With just one request." Rick waited for it and stopped leaning in to kiss her.

"Leave my ass alone this time. I could barely sit down last time," she requested.

"Deal," Rick agreed quickly. He kissed her, caressed her baby bump, then placed his hand on her breast.


	15. Chapter 15

**Empire**

 **Chapter 15**

 _It has been one month since the address at the United Nations_

Kate was sitting on their sofa with one hand resting on her belly, feeling her daughters move, and one hand holding a pad that she was reading. From what she read, it was possible they might have their first victory on this planet.

Then Rick returned from taking Alexis to school. "You should read this, Husband." She was happy. She was happy they were making progress on the planet. She was happy she was pregnant and she was happy that her husband was keeping up with her sexually.

"We have a communication coming up with them and hopefully coordinating a site visit, so brief me about anything new." Rick knew enough already.

"It isn't just South Africa. There are other countries on the African continent that want to talk as well. If those work out we may both be on the planet soon arranging a deal." Kate was starting to think that her husband wasn't going to have to cleanse this planet.

"Good. Shall we go?" Rick reached out both hands to help his wife up off the sofa.

Kate put down her pad, took his hands, and allowed him to pull her to a standing position. "I don't remember being this big with Alexis." She was beginning to fear she was going to be huge, possibly never getting the pregnancy weight off.

"You're carrying twins, Wife." He nuzzled her neck, kissed behind her ear, and caressed her cheek as he took a step back. "Let me know if you have a craving. I'll have someone transport it to the Bridge for you," Rick offered, knowing his wife had had a number of weird cravings of late.

His offer had Kate smiling and giving him a quick kiss. "You're such a good husband." She kept one of his hands and dragged him onto the Bridge.

They both relieved the night staff and got to work catching up with what had happened during the night.

"Communications, get me the President of South Africa. It's time to arrange a meeting. And tell me if any of the bigger nations like Russia or the United States have tried to contact us," Rick said to him.

"We have a number of nations asking for more information, sir. But so far only South Africa wants an on-site meeting. Signaling now, Commodore." Ensign Boze got to work trying to raise her.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was in his shuttle with another squad of Marines as well as a fighter escort on his way down to the planet. He was spending the time rereading what they had about this country and about the city where they would land.

The location they'd selected was a bit puzzling to him. They had asked to meet on the very tip of a peninsula that looked to be part of a shipping location. Still they were willing to talk so he'd readily agreed. Besides, they had no weapons so were no threat. Not that he wasn't taking precautions. "Ten minutes," came an announcement.

Rick knew the Marines would do their duty when they landed. The Marines spread out to form a perimeter and make sure the commodore was safe. They ignored the older woman and the person that was with her. Their scans showed that neither of them were a threat.

Rick exited, still in his combat suit. After a scan of his own he removed his helmet. "Madam President, Richard Castle at your service."

She was in front of her very first alien and yet she didn't show even a shred of excitement or fear. The man with her, however, was clearly excited. "Thank you for coming. I wish to discuss and clarify what you're offering if we agree to all of your terms," Ms. Matsepe-Casaburri stated.

"Of course. Would you like to do this here, somewhere else, or on my ship perhaps?" She could be the first human on his ship.

"Here will be fine. I've tried to be as secretive as possible to prevent the press from intruding. I don't want a repeat of what happened at the United Nations during your approach." The press could be brash and intrusive at times. Far too much so for their own good on occasion.

"As you wish." Rick set a small disc on the ground. "I'm told you want to start with the city we're in. May I suggest this for a design?" He activated the disc and it displayed a city in 3D in the air between them. To her it looked a little like a wagon wheel. There was a large center area, followed by two wheels, each one a little farther out, with spokes connecting it all.

"The central location is primarily housing, places of business, and offices. The rings are mostly housing, warehouses, and places of business. Between each ring are large parks with large lakes. There's also a large lake at the top of the central hub. Given that you want to replace a city on the coast, I suggest that this area here be placed over the water so that ships can dock all along the edge. The entire city will be just over one thousand five square miles in space and be capable of holding four point three million people with the majority in the central hub. With a small expansion you could easily increase that number."

She had several concerns and needed to voice them. "You intend on replacing this city. Not building in a different location?" To her mind that presented a problem.

Rick nodded. "Correct, ma'am. Our transformers will begin dismantling your existing city. As they progress they will begin construction of the new city as they go. They'll recycle all the items they come across as well as clean the environment."

She thought about it. She liked the city since she and her aid had already read what was going to be provided. Her people were her main concern. "Where are the people going to live while you tear down our city?"

"That will be a small challenge. Until the main hub's complete, only a few will be housed in the rings upon completion. We have an idea about how to handle that, though. We want to build multi-level housing over the water, off to one side. Over time they will be transferred there and then back out. Once empty it will be removed." It would be an eyesore for a time.

"Our people aren't going to like losing what they own." She knew she didn't want to lose much of what she owned.

"Their possessions that don't pollute the planet and that they wish to keep will be moved with them. Keep in mind that all of the fresh water, power, and ownership of where they live and work will be free. In addition all maintenance will be handled for free as well. Any portion of the city that fails will be repaired or replaced."

Ms. Matsepe-Casaburri had talked about that in detail with her aids. It presented a problem. Plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, for example, would all be out of work. And that was just the start. "Police, fire fighters, ambulances. What about trash disposal? Our unemployment will soar. No matter how nice it may be the people need work."

"The police will be given electric vehicles to use. They'll have to learn how to keep the peace without weapons meant to kill. Firefighters can have the same if you wish instead of using droids. The same for ambulances.

"As for trash each house and place of business will have a tube to place their trash into. That trash will be dealt with automatically and in an environmentally safe manner. The same for human waste. It's all automated and any repairs will be handled automatically."

That told her that there was going to be unemployment at least initially. The trash companies would be forced out of business. The same for the treatment plants. But the trade-off of never running out of power or fresh water was enticing. That all places would be free of charge might help counter all that.

They had read about the transportation options. The trains and electric cars as well as a limited number of 4x4 electric vehicles for camping and just touring. They had also read about the trains that would be used to interconnect any other cities that would be replaced. The number and especially the speed that they were capable of was simply amazing. If all of Africa did this, there could be trains from Cape Town to Casablanca or Alexandria in under two hours. The idea of that was almost more than she could imagine.

"Your communication said the construction would be complete in under a year." She didn't see that happening at all. No one could build that fast.

"There may be complications that will draw that date out but the estimate stands. We can assign enough transformers to complete the task in a year. All the boats for your shipping needs. All the transportation needs. All the furniture packages for housing and businesses.

"Think about it: no need to buy gasoline for any of your transportation needs. Granted there are still certain items your planet manufactures that will require oil but you will no longer be dependent on either item. No one can force you not to agree. No nation has the military to force you.

"All of the plants will be a mix based on what can be transplanted. It's possible that the majority will be young and small. Although we'll try and conserve what we can." Rick knew there would be challenges. This planet was a mess and doing even this was going to be difficult.

"When would you like for us to start?" He would order the transformers to begin tomorrow if she wanted.

Ms. Matsepe-Casaburri was silent for a time then walked away with her aid.

Rick stayed right where he was and allowed his suit to record everything they said without actually listening to it now. If he saw the need he would listen to the recording later.

He was sure there would be challenges. He was thinking the United States would be the last to agree to the terms. He just wasn't sure who would be next. Perhaps an island nation or series of islands.

Rick ended the 3D view as he continued to stand there and wait.

One of his Marines hurried over to him. "Commodore, I have movement headed this way. It's a large group complete with vehicles of various sizes."

"Sounds like we've been found." Rick thought about it. "All right, all Marines retreat to the shuttle. There's no honor in killing unarmed civilians en masse if it can be avoided." He didn't want his Marines to think they were acting in cowardice.

Rick had no choice but to interrupt their talk. "Ma'am, my Marines have indicated that a large group is headed this way. It's highly probable that we've been found out. If you are not yet ready to make a decision, we'll await your response." He was willing to give them more time.

"I've agreed to your offer and the terms as set by your laws of the Empire. The sooner we can set up trade with other planets of the Empire the better for my people. I'll talk with other nations of Africa and try and get them to see the benefits. Is a month too soon for you to begin?" She had a lot to explain to her people who would have lots of questions for her.

"One month from today won't be a problem. It will allow us time to work out any potential complications of the destruction of your city and the reconstruction of it. You'll be amazed at what this city will bring you and your people." He was happy. His carrot just had its first nibble.

"Load up, we're leaving. Until we meet again, ma'am." Rick bowed deeply.

"My name is Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. You may call me Ivy in the future." Ivy was sure they would be talking a lot in the years to come. If this city worked out like she hoped, she was going to have them transform her entire country. Not just the cities but the farms as well.

"Thank you, Ivy. Please call me Rick. Either I or my wife, Kate, will answer any questions you have. Just signal our ship and we'll respond," he said as he watched the last of his Marines come running in.

"Contact our air support, we're leaving," Rick instructed once he was inside.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate was full of questions when her husband came back, took her seat from her, and assumed command. On the Bridge was not the place, though. She would grill him later.

"Communications, maintain a watch on all communications in the Africa continent. We may have our first group of nations willing to join the Empire."

"Yes, Commodore." Ensign Boze was already monitoring every communication this planet sent out, which was a lot. His work load had just significantly increased.

"Captain, set up a group of communications officers to monitor all communications. I have a feeling we're about to be overloaded with questions." Boze was only one person after all.

"Yes, Commodore." Kate wanted to say _husband,_ but that wasn't how a Bridge should be run.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

It turned out Ivy did indeed have a number of questions. Mostly concerning how to move her people from one place to another and what they would be allowed to bring with them.

Rick, for his part, had wasted no time and had ordered a hundred thousand transformers to begin construction of temporary barracks while the city was being built.

The entire Bridge crew had watched it being built along with a lot of the city's occupants. The Bridge crew was looking for trouble while the citizens were amazed at what was taking place.

However…not everyone was happy, everywhere.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They had been watching the house for weeks. They'd rented a truck and were quickly loading it with everything inside the house that wasn't nailed down. It was the score of a lifetime.

They had defeated the security system. Made sure everyone in the house was off on vacation. They'd even selected the house with great care. It in of itself was worth millions. The interior was worth millions more.

They were about a third loaded when four blue colored spiders showed up. They'd heard about these things and they thought they were ready. They quickly pulled out their hand weapons which was all that was available. If bullets couldn't hurt them, maybe swords would. But they didn't even get to start the attack when the spiders turned red and attacked them. Not their weapons, **them**. In only a moment the thieves were turned to dust.

All but one spider turned back to blue and scurried away to go back on patrol of the city. One turned green. It left a message inscribed onto the side of the truck.

 _ **THE THIEVES WERE DEALT WITH ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF THE EMPIRE**_

It then turned blue and scurried away to join the others.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was off duty today and Kate was taking his place. It meant he was tasked with taking Alexis to school then picking her up and taking care of her. He'd never seen any child so eager to get to school in his entire life. He certainly didn't remember being that enthusiastic about going to school. Alexis being in class left him the rest of the day to read pads about what was happening.

He almost forgot. He had to find somewhere else to read. Today was the day their suite was going to be redesigned, Alexis's room was going to get smaller, and their main room was going to be made smaller. It also meant their bed was going to be moved to create room for the two cribs and a rocking chair for Kate.

He settled down in one of the small park-like areas scattered throughout the commercial part of the ship and read where the temporary quarters were expected to be completed today and the people would have one week to move. After that the old city of Cape Town was going to commence being demolished and the construction of the new city was going to begin.

He also had to do a lot of reading about what the transformers were doing to enforce the laws of the Empire. "One hundred forty-five thousand seven hundred eighty-nine people killed in just three weeks." Rick shook his head. The people of this planet had no honor. They enjoyed killing far too much. He was sure he was going to have yet another debate with his wife about simply cleansing the planet and turning it into a colony planet.

He would lose, of course. His wife could be very persuasive. That lead him to wonder why she was in the military in the first place. She could do great things in the diplomatic service for the Empire. Then he had a thought. The chances of this planet electing a single person to rule them were slim to none. Most likely a governor would have to be selected to rule this planet. Rick smiled; as far as he was concerned she would be the perfect choice.

It had him up and walking. He needed to find the right person. It was time to find a place to build the perfect house. Part political and part personal. He just needed help in making a few selections for the location and the house, or combination of buildings to show his wife. The real question was would she go for the idea?

"Lv Zhi, just the person I'm looking for." Rick found her sitting at her desk drawing something.

"Commodore, what can I help you with?" He had obviously sought her out for something.

"I need your help in selecting a place on the planet suitable for a family of five or more, but that also doubles as a suite of official rooms for the governor of the planet below us."

"Sounds like a challenge." She was already intrigued.

"It will need to be safe and secure and yet open to the public. Space for security personnel as well as a small spaceport. Perhaps below water even." Rick was thinking about trying to hide it.

"Hm, a series of buildings on water with a submerged spaceport. Close enough to land so that the children can attend school. Also for the governor to conduct business." She was busily considering all options. "I presume the spaceport would be used to bring in items from other planets within the Empire. That would mean a warehouse of sufficient size to store those items temporarily." She was still thinking.

"It doesn't have to be on water. Perhaps on and in a mountain somewhere. Something with a view that doesn't get too cold, perhaps. Maybe both so the governor can choose between them." Rick knew he was asking a lot of her.

Her mind quickly switched locations. "A hollowed out mountain to hide a spaceport inside of with a mountainside series of complexes. The work side could be low and the house high above with transit between."

"I'll get started tomorrow. Right after I finish this project. Thank you, Commodore. It's a welcome challenge. I won't let you down." They were going to be two of her greatest designs.

She had feared that being away from the Empire for four years would isolate her. Now she had something that just might give her a chance to leave her mark in the Empire. In her eyes the commodore had just done her a great service. She would **not** fail.

www dot deviantart dot com slash jfliesenborghs slash art slash Futuristic-Paradise-545253997


	16. Chapter 16

**Empire**

 **Chapter 16**

Kate opened the door to their suite. " **HUS** **-** **BAND!** **!** " She was angry with him and he was going to get a piece of her mind. Okay, maybe two pieces.

"In here." Kate hadn't even paid any attention to their remodeled main room. She strode right through it to their room, soon to be HER room since her husband was going to be sleeping on the sofa!

She found him sitting on the bedroom floor with parts spread out all around him. At first she didn't understand what he was doing. Then she spotted the completed crib for one of the twins. This must be the second one. She was still angry with him, but it melted her heart and told her yet again why she had married him.

"I was denied access to the Bridge just now," she bit out. "What have you done?" It was his day off and she should be in the command chair.

"You're pregnant," Rick answered mildly as he picked up two pieces and put them together using a third.

"Pregnant, yes, **not** an invalid." She thought she was fully capable of doing her job.

"Regulations state that you're too far along in your pregnancy to be on the Bridge. I thought you'd know that. I've been overlooking it until now, but I can't keep that up. We may be far from home but that doesn't mean people won't find out." He picked up a piece and started searching for the other.

Kate opened her mouth to counter his statement but closed it with a snap; she knew he was right. It took all the steam out of her fight with him.

"I do, however, have a job for you. You just can't do it on the Bridge until after you've given birth to our twins. Though you might decide to keep it." Rick was hoping she would.

Kate sighed. She was a Bridge officer and had worked hard for that. "Which is?" She just knew she was going to hate it.

"The communications group has been getting a lot of action lately. It seems Ivy's talked more of her cities and even a number of farms into modernizing. You're going to take over all that work. Coordinate with Ivy and everyone else that's shown interest. Show them what they're gaining. Tear down what they have and get the transformers to build new. Maybe show it off to all the other nations. You're in charge…Captain Castle." Rick got up a little to put more pieces together so that it was beginning to look just like the other crib.

Kate was a little taken aback by his offer. She should be on the Bridge, but she was pregnant and regulations were clear. His option sounded good to her. Still…

"You couldn't get two different colors?" They might be twins but did they have to look the same?

"I took what I could get. Unless you want to go down to the planet and get one of theirs?" Rick kept working and didn't look at her.

Actually she hadn't even thought of that. "No, ours is fine. I guess we'll just have to find a different way to tell them apart."

"Good thinking." Rick liked it since he was getting closer to being done.

"So…talk the planet into joining the Empire, huh? Did you think of this alone, Husband?" She suspected he had help. She just couldn't think of who.

Instead of answering her question he picked up a pad and held it high while keeping his back to her. She took it from him and activated it. "What's this?" The first thing she saw was what looked like a large docking area for boats with she didn't know what was was on top. Next came something she did recognize. It was a floating home and it was large. Easily large enough for their family. "Husband?" He obviously had something on his mind so she might as well find out what it was so she could shoot him down.

Rick stopped his work and turned to look at her. "How many nations are there on this crazy planet?" He was leading up to his idea. But he raised a hand to stop her. "A lot and every single one of them hates someone else. Do you honestly think that they'll come together and elect a single person to govern the planet?" He saw only one option.

Kate wanted to say yes, but she greatly feared the answer was no.

"The only way this planet will join the Empire is if we force it to. It's that or we go with my idea." He meant cleanse the planet and make it a colony planet. The Emperor would just have to understand.

She'd really thought she had succeeded in talking him out of that plan. Problem was he had a smile on his face. "What have you done?"

"It's part of the new Capital of the planet for the person who will govern this entire world. These are just two pieces of the entire complex. She will govern and live in this area. Just need to decide where to locate it." Rick tried to keep from having his smile get any bigger.

"Governor. …SHE?" Oh dear lord, her husband wasn't thinking what she thought he was, was he?

"Have you got someone more qualified to govern this planet in mind? Someone who wants to try and achieve her version of what the Emperor ordered us to do? Bring this planet into the Empire. Mine's just quicker and easier." Rick couldn't help it; his smile grew larger.

"ME?" He really was thinking what she thought he was. However, she saw a large problem. "I'll be stationed here long after our four year deployment. What about Alexis and the twins? No, Husband, this is a bad idea." It wasn't just bad, it was terrible.

"I have a thought about that. Each planet in the Empire has a minimum of what for military support?" Rick had a plan for himself as well.

"The minimum is three destroyers." Surely he knew that. Then it hit her. "Rick, no. Just no. You can't go from commanding a Battleship to commanding a destroyer. Husband, no!" He would be demoted, not promoted. She would think of something, anything after this tour.

"It **will** work, Wife, if we both pull in our favors with Roy. One Battleship and maybe one or two destroyers. There's one more thing that neither of us have been thinking about." Rick took the pad from her and changed it to a different screen before handing it back.

Kate studied it and tried to think. It wasn't easy since her mind was still reeling from what Rick was already suggesting. "They aren't that close, my Husband." Earth wasn't on the border.

"No, but it's a good location for a back area location for ships' crews to take shore leave. For ships to be repaired. Just far enough away to be out of the action but still part of the action. You'll be the planet's governor and I'll be the planet's commodore for support and maintenance. Such a position would mean having command of a Battleship for planetary defense.

"It'll work, Kate. That's assuming we both can convince Roy of the plan. We stay here, we both stay here. We both get to watch our children grow up here. Once Earth has joined the Empire they can go anywhere they want. Do and be anything they want to be." Rick finished his pitch for his plan.

She saw that her husband had put a lot of thought into this plan. It was true that if they could convince Roy, he could be very helpful to both of them for this plan to work.

They still had hurdles to overcome, though. The first was getting the Empire to agree to her being made governor. They needed to show proof that a governor was the only option and that she was a suitable candidate.

"You've already sent this to Roy haven't you?" She knew him well.

"I, uh…" Rick didn't want her to be angry with him.

Kate tossed the pad on their bed and walked up to him. He was doing his best to try and find a way for them to remain together as a family. She couldn't love him more for it. Maybe not his plan but his attempt.

"I love you, my Husband." She had chosen well. She kissed him to show that she loved him with all of her heart.

"I love you too…Governor." Rick grinned at her.

"We still need to discuss that. Though I'm willing to be convinced. Do you think you're up to it?" She was already in; she just didn't need her husband to think he'd won her over so easily.

"You start your on-the-job-training for your future governor's position tomorrow. I've set up a space for you and your staff on deck fourteen. Ivy has agreed; we just need more of them. That's now your job." Rick didn't want to make it an order. Plus he didn't think it was necessary.

Her husband had really thought this through. "About this complex…" She had questions.

"I've selected two," Rick told her. "Look them over and add your own. Make changes if it makes you happy. You also need to decide on a location. Where on this crazy planet are we going to live and raise a family?"

It had Kate loving him just a little more. He was talking family. They had both worked hard to get to this point. If they worked hard enough and with just a little luck, it was all going to pay off for them and their children.

"Have I mentioned how much I love you?" Kate kissed him again. "Now finish the crib; I have work to do." She needed more buildings, had to look over this home he had selected for them all, and to decide where they were going to live. "Earth." She shook her head as she walked out. She had never guessed they would be staying here. Not on this screwed up planet that was filled with people that were bent on killing each other. "This had better work." She was going to kill him if it didn't.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate and part of her team were just returning from the planet. The meeting between Ivy and the others had gone well.

The people of Cape Town had mostly been transferred to temporary quarters and the destruction of the old city was well under way. Right behind it was the start of the new city. Kate had made sure that there were photos of the new city hanging all over the old city. The people needed to be reminded what was coming.

It was true that this plan had not been accepted by everyone. Part of the problem was the belief that they were going to lose their identity. The old city had an identity, a soul. The new city was barren and devoid of any soul.

Still the transformers were going strong and not being stopped. They had even worked around some small protesters about what was happening.

However, right now Kate had a problem. She had learned of it during the ride back to the ship. Concerned, she picked up the pad to read it again. What was happening in Africa was small; what was happening in other countries was far more troubling.

The rules and laws of the Empire were not going over well with a number of people. "One hundred twenty-three million four hundred fifty-five people." Kate shook her head. She was starting to think that her husband's plan might rule the day after all. This planet just might lose half a million to possibly a billion people before they were accepted into the Empire.

This planet was filled with people only too willing to be governed by their basic instincts to fight what they didn't like. She was sure part of it was because they hated change. They didn't want to be conquered even if they already were.

Kate and the others entered their space. "We need to work on how to convince people to follow the laws of the Empire. Over a hundred million people to date have been eliminated as a result of breaking the Empire's laws. At this rate we'll lose three times this number." She needed help.

"Captain, no offense, but the planet is heavily overpopulated. Plus have you broken down the numbers? Most of the people being eliminated by the transformers have a criminal record in their own country," the head of her team informed her.

That was why Kate had a team. She was looking at the big picture. "Explain." She needed to understand if she was going to have any chance of changing this.

Jared Jefferies picked up a pad and chose a group at random. "These people, Captain." He handed the pad to Kate who began reading. But he didn't wait for her to finish. "These eleven are typical for some. The locals call them gang members. There's a description of this type included."

Kate read quickly and saw what he was talking about. A note at the bottom told her that the locals had been combating them for years.

"We've been getting communications from the United States, have we not?" Kate had an idea. If it worked for Ivy maybe it would work for them.

"Several, mostly are they are demands and filled with hate," Jared informed her. What she wasn't told was a large amount of foul language being directed at them was from the President of the United States.

"Arrange a meeting between my…between the commodore and their president. Also, don't we have a meeting scheduled between us and the nation called Australia?" Maybe if they had more than some of Africa and all of this Australia it would convince this United States.

Jared nodded. "We do, Captain. We also have requests for a meeting from a nation called India."

"Contact them and arrange a time and location. There or here. Maybe being in space on a spaceship will help convince them." She paused for a moment, thinking. "What about China? That nation's presently creating the most pollution of any place on the planet." They needed to clean that area of pollution or it would just spread.

"Nothing so far. They've refused all contact attempts." He didn't understand why they were being so stubborn.

"Leave them for now, then. Let's concentrate on the nations that're talking to us." The more gains they had the more they would have something to show the other nations instead of just pictures and talk. Even though Kate hated the idea, maybe a small portion of her husband's plan would need to be used. Eliminate the leaders of China and force the changes on their population.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate wearily entered their suite. She couldn't remember ever being this tired. Nor could she remember her back, her breasts, or her feet ever hurting this much. Thankfully the remodel was complete. It was one less thing to deal with. They just had to get used to the new look of the space.

Rick noticed that she wasn't standing up straight. She was shuffling as she walked and her whole face seemed to have an old and tired look to it. "You look tired, Wife."

"Thanks…Husband." She would have shot real daggers at him instead of weak eye daggers but frankly, she was just too tired.

Rick patted a spot on the other end of the sofa that wasn't next to him and watched as his tired wife plopped down. It allowed him to lift her legs up onto his lap, take off her shoes, and begin to massage her feet. He'd done the same thing when she was pregnant with Alexis so he was betting she was in need of his hands yet again.

Kate, for her part, simply leaned back and moaned softly as she let her husband work on her feet. It was enough to forgive him for his comment earlier. She let the pleasure of his hands wash over her.

"Long day?" He'd had the day off and until Alexis had gotten out of school he hadn't done much.

"Very!" Kate remained silent for a time. "South Africa is, so far, mostly on board with joining the Empire. I have meetings lined up with presidents for the next two weeks." She finally let out a moan as Rick continued to work on her feet. It felt so very good. "We're going to have to come up with different designs for some of these locations. There's a lot of desert in this area." She moaned again as the feeling of pleasure washed over her.

"How goes your search for a location?" Rick meant her office and their future home.

"Still working on that. We're going to need a city not just a few buildings, though. The locals are going to have to learn to call it the Capital. We're going to need a lot of people and no, we haven't decided on that either." There was still a lot of work to be done.

"Since I had the day off and Alexis had school I decided to try and help you with some of that." Rick stopped working on her feet which had Kate lifting her head and opening her eyes. She didn't really want him to stop what he was doing.

Rick reached for a pad, handed it to her, and went back to working on her feet.

"What's this?" Kate opened the first page and was immediately interested. "A floating city? This planet has what they call hurricanes, you know." They'd also learned that Earth had tornadoes, volcanoes, and earthquakes. This entire world was one violent place.

"Hmm." She saw mostly pictures with a little text. "I don't think so, Husband. Our family's growing. We're going to need more space. I'll come up with something. Perhaps if we combined the governor's complex and our home along with others. A complete city possibly.

"So what have you been doing all day?" Had she been working her ass off while her husband did nothing? Rick stood up, helped her to her feet, and took her into their bedroom.

"All done," Rick announced and showed off the second crib.

Kate looked over both of them. "You're a good father and husband." She gave him a quick kiss. "Maybe a floating city, only high in the air. I think I saw something earlier." Her mind was still mostly on the job her husband had planned for her.

Then there was a signal for them. Kate sighed and stepped over to the panel. "Yes?"

"We have a signal from the President of the United States. He's requesting a meeting with the commodore in his office tomorrow." Kate turned to look at Rick and saw him nod.

"Signal him that the commodore will be there." She ended the call and turned back to her husband. "He's been the most vocal about his hatred of you and what we're here to do," she warned.

"I'll take precautions." Rick was actually hoping to put an end to him and get the United States to conform. "I promise to be careful, Wife." He wanted his family and wanted to watch them grow up.


	17. Chapter 17

**Empire**

 **Chapter 17**

Kate had been troubled all week. William H. Bracken, the President of the United States, had wanted a meeting the next day. Only to cancel it and arrange for a meeting the following day. He had canceled that one as well. Along with all the following meeting times for the entire week. She was learning to hate this man with a new passion.

It had also driven her to have her team learn all they could about the man. What they quickly found was that no nation on the planet had anything good to say about him. He was universally hated by everyone. Only within his nation was he liked and even that was divided.

They had learned that the presidency only lasted four years and he was close to two years into his. He'd spent most of that time destroying everything that every previous president had ever done.

He had promised that he was going to change the country, that America was going to come first in all things. He may have kept his promise, however, a number of nations had warnings issued about visiting the Untied States. Everything shipped in and out of the nation now cost more because of all the tariffs that had been imposed. So much so that a number of things were now in short supply.

What made most of the other nations angry was his canceling every multinational agreement that the United States had reached with other presidents. He'd claimed they were bad for America so he either abandoned them or withdrew from supporting them. He'd also removed all monetary support for a large number of nations. If they didn't support America then they themselves were not supported financially.

Kate wasn't sure what he was playing at or hoping to achieve, but he was starting to worry her.

Right now, though, she couldn't get to sleep and Bracken was only part of the reason. She was also hot and had already thrown off the covers. For a moment she considered simply using her fingers to temporarily solve the problem. But she had a husband who was sleeping right next to her.

"Husband," she whispered and when he didn't respond she used her hand to jostle him a touch. Still he slept on. Physically needing his touch, she moaned softly. She remembered when Alexis was just a baby; if she so much as moved during the night Rick would wake up and check on her. She hadn't been much better. The tiny redhead was their first baby and they both worried about _everything._

Now Alexis could be in her room having a nightmare and he would sleep right through it. "HUSBAND!" Kate tried a little harder and pushed him a bit harder. She had even considered getting Lt. Commander O'Hairt to sound a General Quarters drill alarm to wake him.

"I'm awake, Mom. Go back to sleep," Rick mumbled in his sleep.

Exasperated, she reached down, grabbed his balls, and squeezed a little. "Husband!"

"WHAT! …What's wrong?" Rick listened but he didn't hear anything. Alexis wasn't screaming. The ship wasn't on alert. Their room wasn't on fire.

"I need you, Husband. It's that time of the month. I need you to eat my pussy and give me an orgasm." The same thing had happened while she was carrying Alexis so it was no surprise that it was happening with the twins.

Rick turned to face her and saw that she was a little red. He smiled slightly and decided to tease her a bit. "Just that, or would you like me to fuck you from behind as well?" He didn't have an erection yet but that didn't mean his wife couldn't fix that.

"Just eat me." That was all she needed. Maybe if that wasn't enough she would consider his offer. Kate spread her legs wide as she watched him work his way down her body. When he finally reached her pussy all he did was blow on it. "Husband, please!" She needed an orgasm, not to be teased.

The second she felt his tongue, she moaned. Kate reached down with both hands and held his head in place. "Eat me!" She was thankful that her husband was talented. It felt like it took no time at all and she was just on the cusp of her orgasm. "Fingers, Husband." She needed just one additional pleasure. Kate felt two fingers enter her; she lifted her ass off the bed and grabbed a pillow to scream her pleasure into. She let her orgasm wash over her as she slowly calmed down. She more felt than saw her husband work his way back up her body.

She leaned her head in and kissed him and tasted herself on his lips. "Thank you, my Husband." He was the best and she was a lucky woman. She reached down and found that he now had an erection. She couldn't leave him like that. She understood the term blue balls and she couldn't leave him like that. Kate got up so she could reach him and took his cock in her mouth. She knew her husband well and it only took a minute for him to orgasm into her mouth. She sucked out every last drop and then moved up to kiss him with a full mouth of his come.

"You're amazing!" She loved him.

Rick pulled her into him as best he could since her belly was now a good bit bigger. "You're the best wife ever." He gave her a quick kiss. "What else is bothering you?" Her face still looked troubled to him.

Kate smiled, glad that her husband knew her so well. It also had her hiding her face in his body. "Bracken. He's playing games. I just don't see how he benefits from all of this. He might be up to something." She just wasn't sure what but she feared for her husband.

Rick already thought he knew. "It's a game. He's trying to show that he's in charge. The longer he makes us wait the stronger his position is. Or so he thinks." Rick really didn't care since he knew the end result.

Kate was taken aback. "You're letting him." Why would her husband do that?

"Of course. The longer it lasts the greater the end result." Rick knew what he was going to do.

"I don't understand. He's making you look bad. Making you look weak." That was the worst part. No member of the Empire could be seen as being weak. People would start to see him as a coward and that was something that couldn't be allowed.

"It's fine, just fine. When we do meet I'm going to kill him." Rick could already see his death.

Kate opened her mouth then closed it and thought about it. Bracken was making a fool of him and her husband was going to kill him for it. "And?" Even she wasn't sure killing just him was enough.

"And everyone he brings with him. That and the transformers are going to search for his entire staff and terminate them all. Followed by terminating all of their politicians. He's going to pay for this, Wife. This planet is the property of the Empire. This nation needs to understand that." Rick also knew that the majority of the people that were fighting the rules of the Empire were in this nation.

Kate knew her husband was still thinking they needed to cleanse the planet. If cleansing this nation of all of its politicians helped to convince other nations to conform then maybe it was worth it.

"Just be careful." If Bracken was willing to play games, it would be no surprise for him to show that he had no honor.

"I know no other way, my Wife." Rick kissed her and rolled her to one side; he felt Kate spread her legs as he lifted her leg high. "Ready for round two?" He kissed her response to silence as his cock began to enter her pussy. She was too big for him to be on top any longer.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate and her team were working hard as Rick and his team left the ship to go meet William H. Bracken, President of the United States.

They were presently working on a pair of items. One was a presentation for Australia and the other was trying to reduce their choices for a Capital city down to just two options. They had at least decided on just where it was going to go. It was an island nation that already had thousands of transformers making changes on a number of their islands. There were twenty-six islands in all that basically formed a ring in the Indian Ocean.

Since none of their cities were as large as the ones in South Africa or Australia, it was a race to see who was actually going to finish first: Cape Town or Malé.

Because it was an island nation they had even agreed to have a city that was actually ALL under water. Kate was actually amused at just how interested the inhabitants were in being the first to live there.

This nation was going to get not just a new city but also a lot of new electric ships for all of their businesses, both big and small. Everyone that moved to the underwater city would get Empire modern scuba gear as well as underwater transportation. That along with the normal items was all provided for free.

"Here are the two options, Captain." Kate was handed the prospectus for the new Capital. One option was a floating-on-water city and the other was a sky city. Each had their pros and cons.

"The team has decided on the sky city, but it's your choice," Jefferies told Kate as he walked away.

Kate liked the security of the sky city. It also had a number of lakes and parks as well as a glass tower that was taller in the center and terraced down on each side. The plan included terraced areas that doubled as small parks. A lot of the apartments were also going to have large terraces with green spaces of their own. There was even going to be a large water park for the citizens to enjoy.

"Captain, the commodore's shuttle is about to land." She instantly found her heart in her throat.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Ten minutes, Commodore." Rick looked at the squad in his shuttle. There were also two more shuttles, both of which were filled with still more Marines. In addition to that their remaining fighters were covering everything up high.

"One minute, Commodore. The other two shuttles have already landed."

So far everything was going to plan. The shuttles full of Marines would land first and secure the area. They had orders to terminate anyone that did not immediately follow their orders. He had no illusions that a few people would be terminated, but he wasn't concerned with that.

Resolute, he stood and pulled out his sword as his Marines got their weapons ready.

When the back ramp came down the Marines rushed out to secure the area and inform the commodore it was safe to come out.

The President's security team didn't like that, not in the slightest. The aliens all had weapons when all they had were mostly hand to hand weapons. The sharpshooters had been reduced to those that knew how to use a composite bow. One even had a crossbow while two actually had Samurai swords. Everyone else had police batons and knives of various sizes. It was a sad state of affairs.

Rick stepped outside and saw his Marines. He also saw a large fountain with a white house behind it. It looked old and wasn't really to his taste. In addition, he saw a large number of humans.

Rick used his internal communications. "Stand ready." That was when he noticed a group of people holding machines that were pointed at him. A quick scan told him that they were recording devices, both video and audio.

Rick walked toward the group of humans expecting not to see Bracken. He was sure he would keep him waiting. However, there he was surrounded by what he was taking to be his security men.

"Mister…" Rick started to talk to him but Bracken interrupted him.

"THAT'S **PRESIDENT** BRACKEN, YOU FUCKING MAMA'S BOY! THIS IS OUR PLANET!" Bracken was ready to keep screaming at him.

Rick firmly but calmly countered his claim. "This planet belongs to the Empire. The sooner you accept this fact the easier it will be for all of you."

"YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY ON THIS PLANET!" Bracken shrieked. "NO ONE ON THIS PLANET RECOGNIZES YOUR AUTHORITY. BEING AN ALIEN ROCKET MAN DOESN'T GIVE YOU ANY AUTHORITY HERE!" Bracken had only just begun with this piece of scum.

"I have all the authority I need. The Emperor has ordered this planet to be added to the Empire and it will be. Either with humans on it or without them and all that they've built. There's nothing you can do to prevent it." Rick was ready to kill this idiot and move on.

Bracken got the opening he was looking for. "You are challenged. I win and you and your scum leave our planet. I lose and you can stay." Bracken started smiling.

Rick didn't see any downside to this challenge. "Challenge accepted. I win and you, your family, and all of your politicians die. I lose and I die." He didn't see it happening; plus if he did die his wife would go into a rage and cleanse this stupid planet.

Rick brought his weapon to the forefront for all to see.

Bracken was still smiling. "Captain Yukimura here is my champion and will be fighting for me." Bracken moved aside and allowed his champion to step forward.

Rick didn't care. "Accepted. After he dies so does everyone else." Rick backed away to get space while he ordered his Marines to back off and make room.

Rick worked at maintaining a certain distance between himself and his challenger. "My sword is hungry for your soul." Rick could feel it humming softly in his hands.

Rick watched him draw his sword from his scabbard. It was relatively long, had a thin blade, and was slightly curved. He thought it was pathetic.

Rick let him start to circle. Based on his steps and balance he was betting this guy was well trained. He wasn't expecting what was to come, though.

His challenger made a move that he obviously expected Rick to counter and give him an opening to strike Rick with. However, Rick's countermove cut his sword into two pieces easily. Rick then twisted his wrist just a touch and the hand that held the blade was sliced off. This had the man screaming in pain as his blood started pumping out with each beat of his heart. But Rick didn't allow for his heart to pump for long. Rick lunged and plunged his sword into his chest. That cut off his screaming. Rick then swung his sword to one side and most effectively cut his body in half.

As he pulled the sword away from the now dead body, everyone saw what they thought was a ghost being ripped out of his body and into the sword. It screamed a horrible life-ending scream as it disappeared into the sword. It was a heart-stopping scream that had all the humans frozen in place.

Rick used this moment to jump to who he knew was Bracken's grown son and cut him in half with a single swing. Like the first man, his soul was ripped from his body with a blood-curdling scream.

Rick then plunged the sword into the woman who was standing next to him. His research told him that this woman was that man's wife. As he withdrew his sword, her screaming soul was ripped from her body and absorbed into the sword.

Rick then did a quick step and spin and cut Bracken's wife in two. Like the others her soul was ripped from her body, screaming the entire way.

Rick spun and stepped toward Bracken who was frozen in place and silent with a look of complete shock on his face. "You've lost; your soul now belongs to my blade."

Bracken couldn't believe it. Captain Yukimura was the very best. He had spent days thinking up this plan and getting him here just for this. It was impossible! He was just starting to open his mouth to scream obscenities at this hated Rocket Man when instead he screamed a blood-curdling scream as Rick cut him in two and ripped his soul out of his body.

Bracken could actually see his body standing there for a moment before the two pieces couldn't stay together any longer and he fell in two pieces. But he barely noticed it as the pain of having his soul being ripped away was a pain he had never imagined was possible. That pain was nothing compared to the pain of having his very soul being consumed to nothing by a sword.

Rick was done and had what he wanted. "Terminate them. ALL OF THEM!" It was time this nation stopped defying him and his Emperor.

He began walking to his shuttle, more than ready to leave this place. He paid no attention to his Marines firing their weapons and seeing everyone being enveloped by what looked like an electrical charge, disappearing once totally enveloped.

He knew without even looking that all of this nation's politicians, senators or house members were being hunted down by thousands of transformers and being turned into small piles of dust. His wife would be angry with him, but this planet was being a pain and it needed to learn a lesson. Maybe China and Russia were paying attention and would learn from this.

This planet belonged to the Empire and it was time this planet understood that.

Rick waited for his Marines to enter the shuttle. "For the Empire. SUCCESS!" Rick slapped his fist into his chest.

All of the Marines followed and yelled, "SUCCESS!"

The Marines were also silently impressed with their commodore. He had proven that he was a warrior and that his sword was amazing. Word of this day was going to travel fast once they were back on the ship. Their commodore wasn't just a paper shuffler. He now had their ultimate respect.


	18. Chapter 18

**Empire**

 **Chapter 18**

Alexis was in school, Rick had just landed, and Kate and her team had finally made a decision.

Then Kate was informed that she had a communication and that it was being transferred down to her. She moved over to a screen to view it. Since they were far from home it was delayed but she couldn't think of what it could be.

" _Captain Castle." Roy Montgomery was smiling wide_ _ly_ _. "Your request for a governor to be appointed to Earth has been approved. Your request for you to be Earth's first_ _g_ _overnor took a little persuading, however_ _,_ _it has also been approved. Provided that you do not cleanse the planet and turn it into just another colony planet." Roy was still smiling wide_ _ly_ _._

" _Your husband has his own communication_ _but_ _I'll inform you so you can surprise him. His request for Earth to be rear area maintenance and rest station for our forces in our ongoing conflict has also been approved._

" _Command is presently working on what forces and supplies will be sent your way._ _Just_ _don't expect them to arrive for close to three years. Closer to the end of your deployment._

" _I've pulled every string I have for Comm_ _o_ _d_ _o_ _re Castle to be stationed_ _on_ _Earth and be placed in command of that station. Unfortunately I'm still awaiting word on that. My personal opinion is that they are waiting for an update on the progress of adding Earth to the Empire._

" _Naturally if it_ _'_ _s decided that the planet_ _'_ _s to be cleansed, all bets are off for both of you." Roy pause_ _d_ _to let Kate think about that._

" _Complete what the Emperor has ordered and I think you will both succeed." Roy slapped his fist to his chest. "Success_ _,_ _Captain Castle."_ And the communication ended.

"YES!" They had a place to live as a family and stay within the Empire. They just needed to complete what they came here for.

Kate grabbed the pad that showed the new Capital and its location and ran to their quarters. She expected that that was where her husband would go after returning. Plus she wanted to know what had happened at his meeting.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate found him sitting at their little table that only sat three, something that might have to be changed in the future. He also had a drink in his hand. The fact that he was drinking already didn't bode well.

"What happened?" He was at least home and alive.

"Your opinion of Bracken was spot on. I won't say it was a trap but he did have a purpose for the meeting he wanted." Rick took another sip and tried to think and explain in a way that wouldn't make his wife angry with him.

Kate simply sat down, looked at him, and waited patiently.

"He challenged me to a duel. His champion against just me." Rick started off with that.

Since her husband was home and looked undamaged, he obviously won. So she waited.

"I killed his champion, him, his wife, and his family." He hadn't actually killed all the others. He had simply ordered it so he wasn't technically lying.

Kate leaned back in her chair. Bracken had challenged her husband and being part of the Empire she knew he couldn't decline. Killing all those people didn't really bother her any. Actually she was starting to think that maybe now the Untied States wouldn't be such a pain in their ass any longer.

"I'm glad you're home, alive and well, Husband." Kate pushed her pad across the table in front of him.

"What's this?" Rick abandoned his drink, activated the pad, and began looking through it. "You've chosen a location and what to build." He was really interested now and started digging deeper in what she had chosen.

"Maldives? What is the Maldives?" Rick had concerned himself with the major nations mostly and this obviously wasn't one of them.

"It's an island nation made up of a number of smaller islands that form a circle in the Indian Ocean. It has a population of around four hundred twenty-seven thousand people. I've already scheduled a meeting with their president. His name is Mohamed," Kate said, happy with her choice.

"An air city…interesting." Rick looked it over. "Most everyone lives in the tower. Government buildings are separate from it. A large spaceport, very nice." He found that there was going to be ship storage. Maintenance hangers. A large amount of storage. The entire area was basically the basement of the city encompassing the whole section.

"An airstrip for the locals. Lots of parks and even a water park. So where do we live?" Rick kept reading and changing screen and Kate just let him search and read.

"Five bedrooms!" Rick's eyes opened wide. "Just how many children do you think we're going to have?" They were up to three already. "Space for our parents to visit maybe?" He changed screens and found the floor plan.

"Three terraces, two of which have large green areas. Five bathrooms, very large open living area. Lots and lots of glass, I see." He saw something and it had him changing screens until he saw more about it. "Our own landing pad on the roof. Very nice." He closed the pad down and put it on the table. "You've been busy. I like it." Rick approved of what he had seen so far.

Kate had one more item for him to read so she handed him another pad. "There's more?" Rick opened it and began reading.

"We need to add this planet to the Empire, Husband. Cleansing it is no longer an option. If you want our family to stay together for a long time, that is."

It had him looking up to look at his wife before going back to reading. "Roy's come through for us. We just need to add this planet to the Empire."

Rick started smiling broadly. "Our future is here…Governor." He couldn't help but tease her that his idea had worked out so far.

"I hope we know what we're doing. We're talking about a lot of work in our future." She as governor of this planet and he as commodore of a port for the Empire.

"I wonder what ship they're going to assign here?" What ship was he going to be in command of. He hadn't read anything about that. "I guess it doesn't matter. We'll be together." It was the best Rick could hope for.

"We have a future. Perhaps without Bracken everything will speed up." Everything rested on this planet being added to the Empire.

"A future as a family, my Husband." Kate leaned across to kiss him soundly. "We can decide on the interior decor later. Maybe something beachy or airy. Something soft for all the…" She stopped talking and placed a hand on her expanded belly. She quickly reached across to grab Rick's hand and place it on her belly.

He felt them moving. "Girls, huh?" Based on their movement he wasn't so sure.

"Tomboys, maybe." Kate smiled wide since all men wanted boys. However, she was happy that her husband loved girls. "They might be daddy's girls, at least until they discover boys."

"You mean take command of some unsuspecting boy." Rick began to laugh. He could see his twin girls being tomboys, being used to being in command and deciding for themselves who was going to be their first conquest.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

America had a problem. Thanks to Bracken and the aliens they effectively had no government at the moment. Almost none of them noticed that they were now in the same boat that Russia had been after the aliens had destroyed the entire Kremlin Complex, effectively killing off their entire government.

Their first problem was finding someone to take control of the search for who was left. There was a contingency for succession of command. It was just that no one had really thought so many people would have been eliminated so quickly.

General Onorati found himself sitting in the Oval Office going through papers that came in to try and find out who was the President of the United States now.

He had done one thing after stepping into the building, though. He'd had that brown-nosed kid that had control over who got access to Bracken removed. He'd given strict orders that he was to be stripped of everything, save for his clothes, and be thrown out through the front gate into the waiting arms of Operative Ian Murray who was personally going to see to it that Jason Weaver was deported. That kid was going to be living in some tree palm shack on an uninhabited island somewhere.

He looked over his list of succession and compared that to what the Secret Service had found. "Vice President, dead. Speaker of the House, dead. President Pro Tempore of the Senate, dead. Secretary of State, dead." He stopped saying what he was reading until he reached the end. "Hell, every Secretary of anything is dead." He had a problem. He huffed out a breath then picked up the phone and called in every general and admiral that he knew of. They had a decision to make.

Worse was that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base when it had been attacked by the aliens. Thanks to Bracken he had yet to have been replaced.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

They were all in the Oval Office. It had taken them an entire day to all get there. "We need to reach a decision. The government's gone. All that remains is us, mostly," General Onorati said tiredly.

"All of them? Surely at least one senator has survived," Admiral Smithson said in disbelief. He wasn't sure how the people were going to handle having their country turned into a military controlled country.

"The aliens killed everyone when Bracken confronted them. There's no one left. We're the highest ranking military officers that I can find. Except for state officials, we're it." Onorati hated to inform them, but this was the fact of life now.

"We may need to submit to the aliens. Turn over control to them. His address at the United Nations stated that Earth was ultimately going to be governed by a single person," General Hoffman said.

"Capitulate? Just give up?" Admiral Kerr hated the very idea of it. He and others had worked very hard to make America the strongest country on the planet.

"Those aren't just rumors. All of our military hardware from hand weapons to ICBMs are gone. They've even destroyed all manufacturers of every kind of weapon and ordnance. We can't replace the fighters, ships, missiles or anything. Not even rounds for weapons we no longer have.

"Every nation is in the same boat we are. We have next to nothing to fight with," the general fired back.

"Based on what he did to Bracken and his family, even their swords are far superior to what we have. That commodore's sword sliced Bracken's champion's samurai sword in half almost by looking at it. Let alone what it did after that." He shook his head. What he had seen was unbelievable. "He talked about taking his soul with his sword."

That had all of them going quiet for a time. Then Admiral Smithson spoke up. "I suggest that you remain in charge for now. Contact the aliens and start making deals. If we don't we're going to be left behind. Very far behind. If we don't we might be the only nation still in the Stone Age."

General Gibson broke in. "Have you seen what they're building in South Africa? They're replacing an entire city with a new modern one. Last I heard all of Africa has made agreements with the aliens. Australia and the Maldives have talked about making deals. We risk being left far behind, very far behind."

"Capitulate." Admiral Kerr spat out the word. He had dedicated his entire life to making sure America was prepared and was always strong. Giving up didn't sit well with him.

"We've already lost, Kerr. We have nothing to fight with. Unless you mean we use this knife here." Gibson pulled out his KA-BAR knife. "You don't enter a gun fight with a knife. Even their guns are far superior to what we had. What choice do we have?"

"I pledged to serve the country to the best of my ability until the day I die. If that means we work with aliens that have already conquered this planet, then I work with aliens. America needs to remain strong and we're already very far behind." Onorati wasn't just talking about the aliens.

"Contact all of our diplomats. It's time we repaired what Bracken has done. Everyone hates us. Remove all of the tariffs and get our economy growing again," a general suggested.

"If we agree to what the aliens have stated about their cities, it will mean massive unemployment. No more car manufacturers. No one to repair them. No one to sell them." That was just one item.

"No more Northrop Grumman or anyone like them. No weapons manufacturers of any kind. All those weapons stores are out of business. …No more gas stations. Our oil refineries will start shutting down." It looked like hell in their future to him.

"We need to replace them with something. Learn how the aliens do it. Manufacture our own," one of them proposed.

"The aliens are offering very modern everything. What if we find a niche in offering modern but old school. Try and retain some of our traditional buildings." Maybe they had something to offer.

General Onorati began barking out his decisions. "Contact our diplomats and the Diplomatic Corp. We need to find out what is going on." He pointed to another two generals. "Get in contact with all of our governors. We need cities that are willing to be changed into very modern ones. From the big ones to the small ones. That includes farms." He ran his hand through his hair, thinking furiously.

"Contact FEMA and get them ready and moving. I'll handle the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, and IRS. Along with contacting Interpol and others. We're joining the Empire. Make sure all of the governors are on board with this. If any of them don't agree, Martial Law will be declared and I **will** remove them from office and send them to Poland to rot in the prisons we have there.

"The aliens are taking over and we need to be at the top of their list. Admiral Isenholt, I leave it to you to contact the aliens and set up a meeting. We are joining the Empire. The sooner this planet is part of their Empire the sooner our military jobs are no longer required.

"Maybe, just maybe, Earth will finally know peace. Put all of us out of a job." A job designed to kill people.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate was just starting to understand what her new job as governor was going to be like. In the past month all she'd done was talk. Talk in person or over a communications channel. All of the presidents wanted something.

However, the hardest part was thanks to her husband killing off all of the United States government officials. She was down to talking to diplomats and local governors. The diplomats had proven to be the easiest to work with. A large number of the governors were starting to wonder if she would have her husband exterminate them as well.

The worst were the ones that had started out by condemning her and the Empire for killing their president. In their eyes, he was the greatest president this nation had ever known.

"Captain, we've gotten another communication from one of the governors of the United States. I recorded it so you could read it at your leisure." He handed Kate a pad so she could read it.

Kate was already in a bad mood. Between her back killing her, her feet aching terribly, and her breasts being full and painful, she'd about had it. Now she was reading this. It wasn't a request, it was a demand. As if he somehow had any say in anything.

It was the final straw. The Governor of the State of Ohio had pushed her to her limits. Kate walked over to a panel. "Husband…Commodore, I need a moment of your time. In private." She didn't need this to be spread all over the ship.

"Headsets," Rick responded as he put his on and sank into his seat. "What's wrong, my Wife?" She sounded pissed. Thankfully it didn't sound like she was pissed at him.

"I need the use of one of your transformers. I want Mikhail DeBeere, the Governor of Ohio, eliminated. He's resisting the transition to control of the Empire." He hadn't actually said no, but what he was doing boiled down to just that.

Rick was tempted to ask why, but since he knew his wife it must be really bad. "Consider it done." He killed the communication.

"Scan the planet for the location of the Governor of Ohio and his immediate family." Rick issued another order. "Weapons, once they locate all of them, deploy one transformer to each of them. Their lives are forfeit for refusing control of the Empire." Technically it wasn't what Kate had asked for. However this nation and this planet needed to learn.

It also had Rick looking up something on one of his monitors. He remembered reading it this morning. Finding it, he reread it.

 _As of this morning, transformers had terminated a total of three hundred ninety-seven point eighty-nine million people on this planet. That didn't include the number of people his ships weapons had terminated in various attacks._

He still had over five billion people to go. "When will they learn?" How many of the human race had to die before they understood that the Empire was in total control of this planet?

"Communications, prepare to override all communication systems of this planet. It's time for a reminder that the Empire owns this planet and they **will** conform to the laws and regulations of the Empire." He left off the _OR ELSE._ But everyone on the bridge had heard it.

All of the Bridge crews were starting to have serious doubts about this planet. It was just too screwed up to ever join the Empire.


	19. Chapter 19

**Empire**

 **Chapter 19**

Rick had received word that his wife was in the hospital. She was in labor with their twins. His biggest problem at the moment was that he was on the Bridge and the regulations were very clear: he or a captain was required to be in command. He had, however, called in a favor and Lt. Commander O'Hairt was going to come take command for a short time. The second his twins arrived and everyone was safe and healthy he would race back to the Bridge and relieve her.

Rick in his command seat and was nervously tapping his foot while he waited. Emma was taking her time getting here. Then the door opened and it had him and most of the Bridge crew turning to look. But it was just an ensign carrying a pad for him to read.

It did allow him to take his mind off of his wife, but he was barely reading what it said, truth be told. He did note that more cities were under construction. Even their future home was under construction over the Maldives.

He was finding that this progress meant that more and more of the transformers were doing construction instead of making sure all of the Empire's laws and regulations were being followed, though. As a result the number of locals being terminated was down. It was either that or they were finally learning that they had no choice.

The last note at the bottom revealed that China had finally made contact. They didn't seem all that interested in the new cities as of yet. What they did ask about was help with eliminating the tons of pollution that they were spewing out. They'd been told that the only way they would gain help with that was if they started modernizing their cities. Right now the sticking point was a number of their cities were filled with buildings they wanted to keep. Something about their culture. Kate's team was just going to have to deal with it all without her for a couple of months at least.

Rick signed off and handed the pad back just as the door opened again and his relief finally arrived. "I stand relieved." Rick didn't wait for her and ran for the door.

"Only if you tell us everything after the twins are delivered, Commodore." She wanted to know everything in return for this favor.

Rick skidded to a halt to look at her and saw all of the Bridge crew turning to look at him. "DEAL!" He was going to inform the ship's entire crew anyway. With that he raced down the hallway to the transit pod. "Maternity." And he was off.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Your wife's in here, Commodore." Rick was shown to the room where Kate was laboring. He opened the door and was greeted by a voice saying, "PUSH!"

"I AM PUSHING!" Kate growled. Rick stepped in next to her and helped her to sit up just a bit more. Kate was too busy watching and pushing to notice.

She'd pushed and pushed and was tiring fast. Only when she sat back and waited for the next contraction did she notice her husband. "Rick!" Her eyes filled with tears. Her husband was with her for the birth of their twins. She had feared he was trapped on the Bridge.

"I wouldn't miss this for anything, Kate." Rick leaned in and kissed her head.

"Get ready to push," the doctor warned her. Another contraction should be coming soon.

Kate felt it and felt Rick supporting her as she screamed and pushed. This time her scream lasted a little longer. They both looked down and saw the doctor guide the first twin out. She used a device to cut the cord and handed the baby off to the waiting nurse to be cleaned and weighed.

"One down, one to go," the doctor told them. Kate tiredly leaned back and looked at her husband. At no time did she love him more than now. She spoke the first twin's name. "Ariel. Her name is Ariel."

"Get ready," the doctor said again and soon Kate was screaming while doing her best to push. A nurse moved in to wipe Kate's face a little to keep the sweat and tears out of her eyes.

"I can see the head; just a couple of more pushes," the doctor said. That only increased Kate's tears. She was pretty much spent and wasn't sure she had even one push left in her, let alone two. Still two screams later and Kate watched the doctor hold up the second twin. "Elara," Kate whispered. The doctor handed her off and waited for the afterbirth to be delivered, making sure there were no complications.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Kate had been moved to a room and Rick was with her. She was exhausted and barely able to keep her eyes open. Then in walked two nurses as well as the doctor. Each nurse was pushing a hospital bassinet with a tiny swaddled infant inside.

Kate was handed one and Rick got the other. Kate was awake now as she held one of her daughters and kissed her head. Rick was doing the same while blinking back tears.

"They're small so they won't be staying long. Our scans show that they're both in perfect health; we just want to be sure and careful. You have ten minutes. Based on their health we'll bring them back for their first feeding." The doctor and the nurses were all smiling widely. "Word's already spreading fast. These two are the first twins for this ship. We have a few other sets of twins that will be following these two soon, but they're the first. Congratulations!" It had been an honor for her and her team.

"Thank you, doctor." Kate looked at her and smiled gratefully. Alexis hadn't been easy but these two had been a little harder on her.

"We'll need full names for each when you're ready, but there's no rush." The doctor motioned for the nurses to take the twins.

Rick gave his up easily. Kate held onto hers for a moment longer, though.

"Get some sleep, you're going to need it since neither of you are going to be getting any anytime soon." The doctor couldn't resist teasing them just a touch.

"Go to sleep, Wife. I'll go shopping for anything we don't already have in preparation before bringing them home." Rick leaned in and kissed her head.

Kate grasped his hand to stop him. "I love you, Rick." Her heart felt full. Her life was feeling more and more complete with each day.

Rick smiled widely and this time leaned down to kiss her lips. "I love you too, Kate. You and our girls are the best thing that have ever happened to me. I wouldn't change a thing for any reason." He kissed her again.

Kate's eyes drifted shut and she was instantly asleep. Her mind was filled with her husband and her daughters.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick was bombarded with questions the second he cleared the door to the Bridge. Even the Marine that was stationed there had a question.

"Ariel Aurora and Elara Star Castle. Ariel is four pounds fifteen ounces while Elara weighs four pounds seven ounces. Ariel is officially eleven minutes older than her twin sister. Mom's doing fine and is sleeping." Rick was beaming as he walked around to everyone on the bridge and pulled out a medallion from the bag he was holding. It was tradition for the father to provide gifts to all the people that were important to him and his Bridge crew was very important to him. "Ariel's on one side and Elara's on the other." Rick handed the last one to the Marine.

"Congratulations, Commodore. The chair is your once more. I'm going back to my family and eat with them before I go back to bed before my shift tonight." Emma got up and waited for Rick.

"You stand relieved. Anything on Communications?" He doubted seriously that there was anything on scans that threatened his ship.

"Nothing that requires a response from us, Commodore. All are being handled by the Governor's team," Emma replied.

"She's not yet officially the Governor just yet. We just have to make sure this crazy planet is added to the Empire and meets all of the Empire's rules and regulations."

"Weapons, what percentages are our transformers at?" What were the ninety million transformers up to?

"A full fifty-four percent are presently doing city destruction followed closely by city construction. Fifty-nine percent of the remainder are in the United States. That nation presently has the most number of people actively disregarding the laws of the Empire. Russia is next with the rest mostly distributed equally across the rest of the planet," Robertson responded.

"The United States. What's wrong with that nation?" Rick shook his head. "Try and maintain that ratio." He used one of his screens to bring up the latest number of people terminated by the transformers for violating the laws of the Empire. "Four hundred seventy-eight point two three million people?" He used his system to try and break that down per nation. It wasn't any surprise to him that the United States was number one. Russian and China were two and three. Surprisingly a nation called North Korea was fourth. Countries that made up the Middle East were next on the list.

His biggest surprise was that the nation called Japan, as populous as it was, was last on his list. None of their cities were presently being destroyed with new cities being built. According to Kate, that nation, as well as China, were putting up the most arguments about having their cities destroyed. Something about their culture and the buildings in their cities meaning a lot to them. Rick didn't have an answer and hoped that either his wife or one of her team could solve the problem.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"MOM, DAD!" Annika burst through the door that was their temporary apartment now that their house was gone and the new one was being built.

"I'm right here, no need to shout," her mother chided. Kaya was in the kitchen trying to find all the ingredients for tonight's dinner.

Annika handed over a fat envelope. "I found this attached to the door!"

It was addressed to their family and it looked a lot like the one they had gotten when they had been told they would be moving. "JABULANI." Her husband was in their bedroom going over their finances. Which had actually improved as of late.

The bank had been forced to forgive their debt on the house and like a lot of banks, they had gone out of business. For a lot of people that was good news. For the people that worked in the banking industry, it was bad news. Banks all over South Africa were failing thanks to the aliens.

Her husband was out of work because his boat had been destroyed. The notice they got telling them that they were moving said it would be replaced with an electric boat, free of charge. Since it wasn't going to need fuel and maintenance on the boat was free, it was going to save them a lot of money. It was just with his boat gone, they weren't presently earning money and were living off of what little savings they had. It was partly why Kaya was having trouble with dinner.

"I'm coming." When his wife yelled it usually meant something big. He was kind of hoping for good news this time instead of the bad news he was expecting.

"It looks official." His wife handed the envelope over to her husband. In their culture he was in charge so he got to open it.

 _Jacobus Family_ _,_

 _In three days you will be moving to your new apartment. As before you are required to box everything except the furniture. The aliens will be using those spiders to move everything from your temporary quarters to your new one_ _s_ _._

 _As you were told_ _previously,_ _the new apartment is provided free_ _of charge_ _. All electrical and water will also be provided_ _at no cost to you_ _. The decor package that you selected when you moved the first time will already be in place_ _._

 _You will find tags that need to be attached to everything that_ _you wish_ _to be moved. The spiders will only move the items that are tagged. Anything not tagged that you want to keep is your responsibility._

 _Enclosed is an overall map of the city and where your apartment is located. Your number is 4228_ _:_ _Sector 4,_ _F_ _loor 22,_ _A_ _partment_ _N_ _umber 8."_ Jabulani stopped reading so he could unfold the map.

"Looks like we're here." He placed his finger over the spot after searching the entire map.

"We're in the ball!" Annika was happy about that. She'd been secretly wishing they'd live in the city center, the one with the large lake and park at the top.

"The twenty-second floor," Kaya moaned. What if the elevators went out? It would mean twenty-two floors of stairs to climb. WITH Groceries.

Jabulani continued reading.

 _Since you owned a fishing boat that produced pollution, its replace_ _ment_ _was required. You will find your new boat, provided free of charge, in the_ _C_ _ommercial_ _D_ _ock area. The_ _D_ _ock area is broken down to_ _C_ _ommercial and_ _R_ _esidential. Your boat is in_ _Be_ _rth C822_ _:_ _Area C,_ _S_ _ection 8,_ _Be_ _rth 22. A reminder_ _:_ _if your boat ever requires maintenance you are required to submit a work order and a spider will arrive to repair the problem. This service is also provided free of charge._

 _Also, if you want a residential boat you need to use the communications suite located in your apartment and add your name to the list. A number of people chosen at random will be provided a list of boats to chose from."_ Jabulai stopped reading.

"OUR OWN BOAT!?" Annika couldn't believe it.

"You still have school, young lady," Jabulani reminded her.

"I know." If she wanted to reach her dream she needed to finish school. However, that didn't mean she had to like it. "Can we go see now? PLEASE!" Her parents just weren't as excited about all of this as she was.

"We have to figure out how to get there first." Her father wasn't even sure how they were going to do that.

"There are electric trains all over, Dad. Haven't you been reading?" She meant trains inside the new city. Where they were located meant using a different form of transportation.

Kaya put her foot down. "We can go AFTER dinner." They didn't have the money to eat at a restaurant. Not until her husband started working again.

"AWW!" Annika didn't like that answer. It meant a delay and she wanted to see it all now!

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Getting to the new city center had been both a pain and an eye-opener. They took an old bus to reach an area where they could get onto a new train. The new train was unlike anything they'd ever seen before. It was ultra sleek and modern. Each car had seats and places for people to stand. It was fast and extremely quiet. There was no squealing of the wheels on steel tracks that their old trains always did.

However, when they got off they were lost. Annika had an idea and went to a display panel that looked a lot like a billboard. She pressed START.

"How may I help you?" a voice quickly inquired.

"WOW! We need to know how to get to our new apartment," Annika stated, finding this to be really cool.

"Number please," the voice responded.

"OH…" She turned to look at her parents. She'd forgotten to memorize their new number.

Jabulani provided their new number: "Four, twenty-two, eight."

"Go to the train area marked number four. Take the train for that Sector. From there you will take a transit pod to your Floor. After that walk to your apartment. Thank you for serving the EMPIRE!"

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Everything had gone perfectly, right up until they finally found out that there were a lot of transit pods or elevators, that took them to their floor. With their luck they had taken the pod that was the farthest from their apartment.

"FINALLY!" Kaya was tired of walking. They were all standing in front of door number eight on floor twenty-two. "How do we get in?" There was no doorknob. There was no lock. It was just a door with a number on it.

They had seen a number of people that were probably doing what they were doing, coming to look at their new home.

"Maybe they lied and it's not ready yet." Jabulani was sure it was his luck behind this.

"There has to be a way." Annika wasn't willing to give up yet and raised her hand to search the entire door. The second her hand touched the door, that space turned green and the door opened for them.

"WOW!" She had never seen a door do that before.

"WAIT!" Her father tried to stop her since he should be going in first, but his daughter wasn't listening and burst into the space. "Annika?" He had no idea what to do with her.

Her parents were outside and she was walking into the large open area that was complete with furniture, save for those pieces that were going to be moved. "WOW! MOM, DAD, YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!" It was a dream, she was sure of it.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Annika was catching on fast. She stopped at a panel and pressed START. "Where is the Commercial Dock?" Annika looked at her dad again since it was yet another number she hadn't bothered to remember.

"Area C, Section 8, Berth 22," Jabulani said

It meant another train trip with a stop at Area C, followed by a people mover to reach Section 8. Along the way they saw trains and moving cars that were meant for people and for items, like the fish that he was going to be catching.

They had to walk a ways down the dock to reach Berth 22.

"Jabulani!" Kaya had her hands over her mouth. His old ship was just that. OLD! It needed paint; it was rusty and the engine was always giving him trouble. "It's beautiful!" She could feel the tears running down her face. Their lives were changing and they were getting so much better.

They each took a different area and searched the entire boat. Jabulani found his old engines gone. In their place was something he didn't recognize. Gone were the fuel tanks. His bridge where he would be sitting a lot of the time was totally different. It was filled with video screens and controls he'd never seen before.

"Modern." Annika patted her father's upper arm as she looked around and began pressing panels. "Radar!" She had found that screen easily enough. "GPS and I think this is a depth finder. This looks like engine information. …This is so cool, Dad!" She approved.

Jabulani was trying to follow it all. "Too modern." He shook his head. What he saw was that it was all way over his head.

"Practice, you just need practice. It's what you keep telling me all the time." Annika was happy that she got to give it right back to him. She even got him to stare at him. It made her feel good.

Kaya had joined them as her husband started looking over all of the controls with his daughter. "The sooner you start fishing the sooner we'll have money." She knew they didn't have a lot left.

Jabulani nodded his agreement. "I'll contact the crew and get started right after we finish moving." They all had a new life in front of them.

Annika knew who was responsible for it all. "Thank the Empire, Dad, thank the Empire."


	20. Chapter 20

**Empire**

 **Chapter 20**

 **Epilogue**

 _It has been three years_

"DADDY!" Two very happy girls came charging at him the second he walked into their suite onboard the only ship they had ever known. They were only three and small for their age so they had no trouble running around all the boxes that dotted the area.

"HEY!" Rick scooped up both of them, one in each arm. "You two ready to move? Are you all packed?" They had so many toys that their room was full, even if half the room was taken up by bunk beds.

"Mommy," Ariel informed him sweetly.

"You left mommy to do all the work?" He tried to sound upset that they weren't doing anything to help her. "Where's Alexis?" His older daughter was far more responsible than these two.

"School," Elara answered.

"Well, we better help mommy with your room." Rick put them down and followed them to their room. They found Kate still busily packing. "I found these two out front doing nothing. We're here to help."

"Excellent!" Kate picked up an empty box and threw it at her husband. "Fill that." She didn't care what went into it just so long as it was filled.

"Does Alexis's room look anything like this?" Rick questioned hesitantly, looking at the disaster that was his daughters' room.

"Lexi has her own room," Ariel piped up helpfully.

"Thankfully no," Kate commented. "Alexis has packed everything and is ready to move. Not so much these two." Kate hadn't expected much from three year olds, but they had actually taken things OUT of boxes she'd just filled.

That had Rick glaring at his daughters with his evil eyes. "We're never moving if you two don't get packed. We might even leave your toys here." Maybe a threat would get them moving.

"NO!" they yelled in stereo at their father. They wanted to move very badly. They'd been promised they would each have their own room.

"Then help me fill this." Rick grabbed a stuffed animal, handed it to Ariel and watched her drop it in the box. "Good, now keep going, we need to fill this or your toys are staying here." He would never leave his babies' toys behind but they didn't need to know that.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick and Kate were sitting, resting while Alexis was reading to the twins. Alexis had always been good at reading mostly for herself. However, she had a knack for reading and bringing a story to life while using different voices for each person. It meant the twins weren't trying to unpack their toys and they weren't driving their parents crazy.

"They'd better hurry up and get here before Alexis finishes her story." Kate needed to get moving and keep her girls busy.

" **You** **'re** the one who wanted another child," Rick reminded her, suffering Kate's dagger looks without damage. Fortunately for him their doorbell sounded and he jumped up to get away from his very annoyed wife, thanks to his big mouth.

"Time to go girls!" The movers with the droids had finally arrived.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"WOW!" Ariel's and Elara's eyes were huge during the whole time on their way to their new home. The entire place looked nothing like what they were used to. There was real sunlight everywhere. Plus everything looked different to what they were used to.

"This is really nice, Mom." Alexis knew who was responsible for all this and even she was impressed.

Rick placed his hand on the door and watched it open. "Okay, you three go find your bedrooms." He knew what was most important to all three of them and watched one figure with long orange hair and two with long brown hair run inside and disappear. "That should hold them for a few minutes at least." Rick and Kate got to work telling droids where to place what. Mostly it was just clothes, toys, and little things. Every suite in the new city came complete with furniture based on what package you selected.

"MOMMY, DADDY!" Elara yelled since she needed help.

"I'll go, you keep telling the droids what to do," Rick said and went in search of his rather loud daughter.

He walked past the first door and saw Alexis already unpacking her things. That left one of the doors on the opposite side. The first door revealed Ariel sitting on the floor with a small box that she was pulling stuff out of and leaving on the floor. He saw a lot of work ahead for him and his wife in that room.

"You yelled." Rick stepped into Elara's room to find her standing next to her bed. "What's wrong?" Had she won this room or had she lost and was upset?

"Move, Daddy." She pointed to her bed. It was her first big bed since she had grown up in the upper bunk of the bunk beds.

Rick immediately saw more trouble in his future. She was only three and already giving orders about how she wanted her room decorated. "Where do you want it?" Did he need to move boxes first?

"There." She pointed to a corner of her room.

Rick pushed it up against the wall in that corner. "No, Daddy." All she knew was that it was wrong.

"It's in the corner." He didn't see what he had done wrong.

It wasn't what she wanted. "Move, Daddy." Rick groaned but began moving the bed a little. "Stop!" He was close and she moved in to push a corner and watched her daddy push a little. "Stop!"

Elara looked it over and liked where it was now. "Tanks, Daddy." She jumped up on her bed that still didn't have any sheets on it and lay down on her back.

"Like it?" Rick wasn't sure it was right but if it made her happy, he was happy. All he got back was a hum from her.

He went back to his wife. "Your daughter is a budding interior decorator." Whether she would be a good one or a bad one was still to be answered. Kate ignored the _Your Daughter_ part and dismissed the droids since they were done.

"Ariel's emptying her boxes all over the floor, by the way," Rick said. Kate frowned and walked toward Ariel's room before she made too big of a mess. She'd put the toys in time out for a day if she had to.

Then Rick heard the door bell and went to see who it was. His display on the door showed exactly who was on the other side as the door became see through. It looked like an ensign with a pad, to him.

"Thank you." Rick took the pad and closed the door. He was hoping it was what he was expecting. Roy had already told him that he was being stationed on Earth and that the first ships for construction would be showing up soon. He was hoping that this was going to tell him they'd arrived.

Rick was soon smiling broadly as he went to the bedrooms in search of his wife. He found her emptying boxes in Ariel's room so that she didn't make her mess any bigger.

He held up his pad. "The fleet's arrived."

Kate stopped what she was doing and took the pad from him so she could read it for herself. "One battleship, four cruisers, eight destroyers. A construction crew consisting of thirty-six ships plus another forty-eight that are cargo ships." She was impressed. "That's far more than we thought, Husband." Command had obviously loved her husband's idea. "What's the Tso Ying?" She had never heard the name before.

That had Rick taking the pad back from her. He had heard the ship's name before and was trying to think as he repeated the name over and over. "If I'm right it was commissioned over twenty-one years ago." They were sending him a relic to command.

"Oh, Husband!" To go from a brand-new ship that was just four years old to a hunk of junk. She felt terrible for him.

"I'll survive." Rick would make the best of it. "It's not like it's meant to go into front line combat." It was a rear support ship not a front line combat ship.

"MOMMY!" Ariel wasn't being helped any longer and that was just **not** acceptable.

"Go check on Elara. Looks like I'll be staying here for a while." Kate was hoping that she and her husband would have time to unpack a little of their own stuff before bed. They even had to go find dinner before that.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

It was late later that same day. Rick was relaxing on the sofa and was doing what he shouldn't; he had his feet on the coffee table. Though his wife, who was curled up next to him, hadn't said a thing. "We survived." Rick was actually a little amazed. Kate chuckled. Moving with three girls to a city that they'd only ever seen renderings and floor plans for had proven to be the challenge they had been expecting.

They had even found the time to give Kate's new office as Governor of Earth a quick visit.

"We have to survive tomorrow as well," Kate added since they weren't out of the woods just yet. They had to locate the daycare for the twins as well as Alexis's school, make it to her new office in time, and for Rick to take command of his new ship.

"I actually thought we were going to have to cleanse this planet." Rick still thought his plan was the easier plan.

"We came a lot closer than you think, Husband." Kate had feared her husband's plan was actually going to happen for a time.

"You've done amazingly well, Wife!" Rick bent to kiss her head. He had no idea how she'd managed it.

"We're in the Empire. Though we still have a lot of work to do. We have just so many transformers." They had a lot of them, yes, but they were needed to enforce the Empire's laws as well as destroy existing cities, towns, farms, and build new.

Kate had even found a way to satisfy China, Japan, and other nations that had important old buildings that were a part of their culture. She hadn't expected China to put up such a fight over some of their larger cities. To them a few were the most modern cities on the planet. Having them replaced with even more modern cities hadn't been easy.

"How did we do? How many have broken the law and have been eliminated?" Rick had been leaving that number to Kate.

"As of last night…eight hundred fifty-six million nine hundred forty-seven. That number will likely continue to grow. Fifty-nine percent of that number comes from the United States alone." Kate shook her head; she still couldn't understand that nation.

Then she smiled. "The tiny town of Jerome, Arizona was the first to sign on in that nation. It was so small it was finished before several of the others. It did start a wave of small towns signing on, though." The United States still had no large cities being worked on. Several were on the list but they would not be started for years. It had taken a year just to complete Cape Town in South Africa which had been the first. Actually all of Africa was far out in front of any other continent.

"We'll survive." Rick was thankful that his family was in the air, far away from the locals. The city, save for food, was self-sustaining much like all of the new cities. Unless they wanted to, they had no reason to leave it.

"Is it too early to start planning our first vacation as a family?" He was ready to get away from this screwed-up planet.

Kate grinned. "Somewhere deeper inside the Empire? Somewhere like where my parents live?" she teased.

"Or **my** parents," Rick countered.

"Your planet is a heavy gravity planet, Husband. The girls are still very young and don't have a lot of muscle mass." Kate also wasn't interested in finding out how much she weighed on his home planet. The first time had been enough of a shock. Plus she tired quickly there.

"Planet Oasis? I think that's what they changed their name to." Rick was thinking of the girls mostly. Not that the planet didn't have things for adults to enjoy.

"I'll talk to my parents. You can talk to yours. Maybe we can get them to watch the girls while we have some alone time." Kate reached down and cupped his balls.

It got the reaction she'd been expecting. Rick stood up and she squealed as her husband easily scooped her into his arms. "I'm not that tired. …Are you?" She'd been the one that started it after all.

"Make love to me, Husband." Kate wasn't that tired, either.

"MOMMY!" a little voice called. Both of them moaned, just not in sexual pleasure.

Rick put her down. "Go strip and get out the straps. She probably just wants a drink of water. I'm tying you to the bed and having my way with you tonight." Kate brushed her lips across his and hips swaying seductively, headed to their bedroom with Rick right behind her. He goosed her just as she reached the door. Kate jumped a bit, squealed softly, and smiled at him before she went to find out what their daughter wanted.

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

"Welcome aboard, Commodore. Ensign LeClerc here will be your aid." The young man and the Marine serving as the boarding guards greeted him.

"It is a pleasure to serve, Commodore." LeClerc quickly saluted and awaited his first order.

"How about a tour first? Let's see what we have to work with." Rick was unsure about what he would find.

"Of course, sir. The Tso Ying has been in space dock undergoing a complete refit for the last three years. It's effectively a brand new ship. The crew has spent the last four months getting here to get used to everything," LeClerc said.

That had Rick opening his eyes wide. "A complete refit. Let's find out." He motioned for his aid to lead him.

LeClerc took him to Engineering first. "Welcome to Engineering, Commodore," Chief Engineer Daniel Montgomery Scott said. "Everything has been upgraded. The basics are still the same, however all of the couplings have been improved. It should mean far fewer ruptures and loss of main power.

"We have a prototype weapons platform along with standard shielding. As I mentioned, the power couplings have been improved upon so they should hold up better. Plus we have double the number of droids for maintenance and repairs. We should be able to repair anything in half the time. …Provided we have the parts, and if we don't, we have a shop onboard to make them. Though that shop should see little action once the space station construction has been completed." Rick knew that wasn't going to be completed for another five to six years. What he had read about it placed it at about the sixth largest station within the Empire.

LeClerc took him to Medical next.

"Commodore, welcome to Medical. I'm Doctor Katelyn Greene, my team and I are at your disposal. Which reminds me, per regulations you're required to have a complete physical within a week of assuming command." It was a formality. But if Rick failed it for some reason he would be relieved of command. The doctor had complete control over who was fit to serve onboard this ship.

Rick didn't get to leave Medical until after he had an appointment.

An hour later and Rick was taken to the door that lead to the Bridge. "Call when you require me, Commodore." LeClerc did not yet have clearance for Bridge duty.

Rick put in his code and watched the door open only to be confronted by a heavily armed Marine. "Commodore on the Bridge!" He came to a crisp salute and stood up straight.

Rick stepped inside and found all of the Bridge personnel standing to greet him. "At ease, resume your stations." He was happy to get it but they shouldn't be taking their eyes off of their screens.

It gave him a moment to look the place over as the Marine closed the door. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. All of the stations looked familiar, it was just that the layout was totally different.

"It's been upgraded." He had been expecting an old bridge layout. This was definitely not that. Rick had heard about these but had never actually seen one with his own eyes. While it was this ship's Bridge, it was also a Fleet Bridge usually reserved for admirals of fleets.

There was a round center console that held four chairs. In the middle was his familiar globe that could be used to view everything that was within scanning range. Or have one of the fleet's ship's scans transferred to it.

Across from his chair on the far wall was a blow up of all the ship showing all of the ship's systems. Primarily used for damage control. There were four smaller screens to one side of that main screen.

The Bridge was also round and to either side were stations that could display twelve different ships within the fleet, six on either side. Communication and monitoring and if necessary, total control over that ship.

With him in the center was Engineering, Communications, Navigation, and Weapons. There were no civilians on this ship. It was strictly a military ship, therefore it didn't have his wife's old Control station.

"Report," Rick ordered as he took his seat.

He got "Ready, sir," from each of his ship's stations then he began issuing orders. "We'll stay and guard the planet and the station as it's being constructed, for now. Order our destroyers to begin touring this system. I want to know if there are any enemy probes in this system. They may be hiding on the edge. Have our cruisers stay inside the system. I want each planet and moon scanned. Have a cruiser scan this system's sun's corona."

It was time to make sure this system was secure and in total control of the Empire.

Now was not a good time to be caught by an enemy scout. "Yes, Commodore," rang out as everyone got to work.

Rick got to work using the globe and the screen on the far wall to get used to this ship. He also tried to listen as each officer communicated with the other ships in this fleet.

He was thankful that his shift was uneventful. The destroyers had only just started their tour of the system while the cruisers were busy scanning every planet and moon in this system in depth.

Before he left Rick had one more thing to do. "Give me fleetwide and shipwide." He had a message for all of them.

"Ready, Commodore," his Communications officer said.

"This is Commodore Castle. This planet has recently been added to the Empire. As such, locations on the planet are presently restricted. For now all shore leaves are restricted to the planet's Capital and the continent called Africa. Travel to certain nations, those being the United States, Russia, and China, is strictly forbidden. Travel to other nations is to be cleared through the governor and her staff.

"The Capital and this planet can and will have a lot to offer for everyone. For those personnel that have traveled here with family, they will find space in the Capital. Coordinate with the Governor and her staff.

"For the Empire, SUCCESS!" Rick's fist thudded a salute on his chest and heard his entire Bridge crew respond.

"SUCCESS!"

 **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - ** - O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::** \- O - **:::**

Rick had gotten used to just walking across the hall to get home. Now he had to take a shuttle home. However, he did get to land on the roof.

Ariel and Elara would still be in daycare while Alexis would be in school. His wife was probably at her office. She still had a lot to do for this planet. Much to his surprise, though, he found her sitting in the living room surrounded by pads. "Working from home?" He was happy to see her and so he made space so he could sit next to her and give her a quick kiss.

"We had a malfunction in the office. The droids and a supervisor are chasing it down." Kate was stuck working there for today. "Here, you should see this." She handed him a pad to read.

Rick was silent as he activated the pad. "It's the station they're building." He was truly interested now. He really didn't want to have to deal with any of this planet's nations any longer. He was happy his wife was suited for the job.

He whistled. "They're serious about this location." He knew it was going to be the sixth largest station in the Empire, but this thing was impressive.

"You got what you wished for, Husband." Kate leaned across to kiss his cheek.

"Next time, stop me." Rick chuckled as Kate leaned across to kiss his mouth this time.

"We're home, Husband." Kate couldn't be more happy. After all they had gone through to get there.

"I suppose you want another child or two now," Rick asked while smiling.

Kate considered it. Alexis was fast approaching her early teens. The twins were three. "I'll let you know." At the moment she wasn't interested in having another child. Then she saw her husband smiling widely at her.

"I love you, Richard Castle." Kate took hold of his head and kissed him again.

"I love you too, Katherine Beckett. So much." Neither wanted to know what their lives would be like without the other.


End file.
